Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm grateful to be successful, and I'm grateful that we can make a living, and I hope we can maintain our integrity forever. That's really my only dream. The notion of bigness or smallness, I feel like that comes and goes in such waves that are kind of out of my control.
I went to college for, like, a year and a half with the intention of doing some kind of art therapy or some kind of teaching of art, because I feel like art is a more free area in school than music is. I feel like music is too mathematic for me. Music school's so hard. It's math.
I think a lot of people vote in fear. People like Donald Trump are good at casting this shadow of fear over people, making them believe if they don't vote for him then the terrorists are going to get them or whatever. All his ways are to scare people to vote for him. It's so sad.
We don't have universal health care. Education is so expensive. We have these massive problems, you know? So it makes me really happy to think that somebody could have all the music in the world for free. But at the same time, if you have enough money to pay for it, you should pay for it.
I was talking to my publisher, Jamie Ceretta, who's one of my closest confidants and allies when I'm working on new music. I feel like I can always count on his judgement because he'll tell me if he doesn't like something. It's sometimes hard to get people to tell you if they don't like something.
Almost every time I go to the ocean, I think about throwing my phone right into it. Sometimes, you pull that thing out of your pocket, you look at it, and you're like, 'What was I just going to do with this? Was I going to take a note? Was I going to check my email? Was I going to take a picture?'
I'd love to have a lifetime career. If you look at people like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, people who have been there forever and who still make relevant music that people want to listen to - that would be amazing. I hope to be able to do that. But above all else, I feel like I just want to be happy.
'Circuital' was just so much about us as a band. We captured every song live, including the main vocal. That is probably my favorite My Morning Jacket record because it's really the essence of us being us. The solo record is just a completely different essence of just me trying to figure out stuff.
You might see someone with dreadlocks and label them a hippie in your head, but that doesn't mean they think of themselves that way. A lot of people look at me and see I have a beard and shaggy hair, and think I'm a hippie. I'm not a hippie, and I'm not not a hippie. I don't know what the f**k I am.
I was always kind of against streaming, but I've been traveling so much, and I usually carry a huge hard drive of digital music with me, but I haven't had time to deal with it, so I've been doing streaming. And I had this incredible breakthrough of weightlessness where I've really been loving streaming music.
I always think of albums as the format. I think it's perfect. I don't think you can tamper with that. It's not just sound, the analog, which is so much richer. It's the format. You're constrained by just 45 minutes, and it's perfect to me. I don't want to listen to any more than, and I live and breathe music.
Whenever we come back from another project, we're always so stoked to see each other and play with each other again. I really feel like that's been the key to why we're still together as a band. I remember a period five or six years ago feeling a little burnt out and wasn't sure whether I wanted to keep doing it.
I think maybe the vehicle for me was 'Sam Cooke's Greatest Hits.' It has a song called, 'Touch the Hem of His Garment.' Do you know that song? I kind of got obsessed with that song and started exploring and getting more of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers and really getting into that super, super deeply.
Big religion was started with one goal in mind: to make money. And I'm not knocking anyone's faith, because I think there are a lot of good values to be found in any faith. But when any faith starts to get in the way of love, that's where you can tell that greed and fear have stepped in and that those things come from man.
For me, changing the sound and listening to new music - that's just so fun. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You're never going to please everybody. I feel that at the end of the day, I should make what I want to make since somebody is going to hate it and somebody is going to love it too. I can't control that.
That's why you put out records: hoping that people will connect with them. I mean, I play music for myself, for sure, and I would still play music even if people didn't like it. But it means a lot when it connects to people and they enjoy it. But it's funny: you get criticism as much as you get praise. It kind of evens out after awhile.
It's not the '80s any more. We're not all riding around in limousines and snorting coke off of hookers' tits. We still have to keep working and touring. We're definitely still very much a working band. If we stopped doing this tomorrow, we'd have a little bit of cash to last us a couple of months, and then we'd have to go and get other jobs.
I'm not the kind of person that's so self-confident that I would ever think I had recorded anything great. I know that whenever we finish an album and turn it in, I know that in my deepest heart of hearts that we did the best that we could. Only time goes on to tell what I will think of it 10 years later or if people will listen to it forever or if people will get tired of it.
I feel like hate and darkness get so much airtime. We need to give peace and love as much airtime as we can. We need to be teaching our kids that it's okay to love whoever you want to love, and it's okay to be who you want to be, and it's okay to feel that everybody should be treated equally and with respect. Such simple things that I don't know why it's hard for people to understand.
It's tough to make music and make it your own, and not have somebody call it something you don't agree with but can't control. Sometimes the press doesn't realize how much power they have and how they can shape somebody's life. I think there's a lot of people just trying to make music and get their art out there, and their heads get f**ked by the press calling them this or calling them that.
When I had dinner with a friend or a loved one and one of you pays for the check and the other says, "I owe you next time." I like to think that we're eternally even - that they don't owe me anything or I don't owe them anything if you have a connection with somebody or a love with somebody. I like to think that there's no debt to pay. You love each other and you're happy to pay for dinner every time.
Songwriting is ... all about intuition - this thing pops into your head for a reason and it's up to you to follow it. It's like there's a spirit, or intuitive network, that comes through all of us, but most people don't take the time to think about it or remember it. These little things pop into our heads - it's just a process of intuition. The initial thought comes in a baby state, and you work on that some more.
I think there are lots of things that people think are so different but they're not. People think there is a huge difference between hip hop and country music, but there is really not when you start looking into themes and what people are struggling with or celebrating. When you break it down to the chords and the beats it is all the same. Personally, I am obsessed with music as it is a limitless tunnel that you can explore.
I can't understand how some bands are criticized for doing something different and other bands are rewarded for doing things different. At the end of the day, I throw my hands up in the air and say, "F**k it." I've come to accept that no matter what we do, there's going to be somebody out there on the Internet that says it's a piece of s**t and somebody who says they really like it. That's happened with every single album we've put out.
Huge events in life inform you in so many ways that you know about and many other ways that you cannot even comprehend. To go through a big experience can have such a profound impact on everything that you do. It's the common thing that everyone says about a tragedy - it is a really tough thing to happen but it is amazing, and a gift, if you can look at the positive aspects that come out and the friendships that are made from the people that provided help and support.
Louisville is a place with no labels. It’s not the South, it’s not Chicago, and you don’t think of it as you think of New York or LA. It has some Southern romanticism to it, but also a Northern progressivism, this weird urban island in the middle of the state of Kentucky that has always provided a fertile, often dark, bed. For us, Louisville and the surrounding areas are the center of massive creativity and massive weirdness. The place has its flaws: You move away, but you’re always going to come back.