Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Songwriting is hard - it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.
The Strokes can play anything. They could play 'Thriller,' and it would just sound like 'Thriller' as played by the Strokes.
There are so many little places I want to play, sometimes weird places I think would be fun to play... a bar that's half full.
When I hear Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come', it frustrates me because no matter how hard I try, I can never be that good.
L.A. is a vortex. The weather there tricks you into thinking you're on vacation, even when you're working fourteen hours a day.
I think I used to do everything and then people had a problem with that within the band, so we're doing more of a communal thing.
I always reference 'Mad Max' when I think about what I want to wear. But it's a fine line between that and 'Edward Scissorhands'.
I'd like to just get to a point where maybe we can say something that will be matterful. That's definitely not a word, by the way.
The only goal right now that I can have, the only thing I can offer right now, is the need to get good at music, do something with quality.
L.A.'s kind of, like, seven really cool towns. It's so laid-back. If you go in the right spot, you can walk around, and you don't need a car.
The best artists are the ones that work the hardest, and if you work hard enough, you'll eventually experience the happy accidents that are art.
It was 100,000 years before we figured out what to do with fire. Imagine cavemen, sitting in front of a fire, eating raw meat for 100 thousand years.
I see myself out of my own eyes, which means I have no idea what's going on the other way around. I just think I try to be a good person, and I fail.
I see myself out of my own eyes, which means I have no idea what's going on the other way around. I just think I try to be a good person - and I fail.
When you first start writing a song, it's fun, then when you start recording it, it's fun, but by the time you've finished recording it, you're sick of it.
I feel slightly confused about certain things. Practical and tactical things. When you try to make everyone happy… in the end you've got to make yourself happy.
I very often have night terrors. Just think of the worst possible situation, and it's a regular thing for me. I've died in my sleep twenty-three different ways.
For a long time I didn't want to do a solo thing, but there comes a point where everyone else is going outside of The Strokes and The Strokes filtering process.
One of the big songwriting things for me has always been: always think what you do sucks. Because the second you stop believing that, you suck. And that's a fact.
Doing heroin is like walking around with a terrorist as your friend. It's like taking a terrorist around to parties You never know when it's going to blow up on you.
I think all of Manhattan has pretty much become a bar-slash-nightclub-slash-restaurant. There were always pockets of that. But now every corner of Manhattan is that.
In most cultures, you can have a kid at 18 and it's not a big thing. It's not like, 'Oh, you've got to get a different haircut and move to the suburbs and act, like, 35.'
A tour is the most intense, stimulating way to hear music; it's the best form to receive it. There's genuine excitement from people. I feel like we've stepped up a level.
I'm just going to try and be a good dad and not spoil the kid: give him love and encouragement but also discipline. Me and my woman, we don't want him to feel too entitled.
I find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams. But, like, everyone on the Red Sox is a random millionaire athlete from somewhere else.
It's like an inner struggle for me, between saying I don't give a **** and trying to make it work. You want to do the right thing, but I'm sick of people thinking I'm difficult.
The artistic element of Manhattan has kind of moved to Brooklyn. Has it changed it? Yeah. Has it ruined it? I would say no. It is what it is. I say better that than an urban war zone.
If you're in a bar and a certain song comes on and the vibe is just different, it evokes the kinds of things that you want to feel, and if music can do that it's a very special thing.
I have to say, I'm good with gifts. If I find something perfect for a certain person, I'll just get it and put it away in a kind of nook under my bed - a little gift hutch, if you prefer.
I want to be one of those people, be they writers, poets, musicians, who leaves clues for the next generation. The really good people leave clues that help feed the human race. That's my aspiration.
It's that feeling when you hear your favourite song. That feeling, whether you're in a car, at a party or alone at home or in bed and you hear this song and it just hits you so strong - that’s what we aim for.
If the choice is between doing something supercool and having no one hear it and doing something equally cool and tricking people into putting it on the radio, I don't think the second option is some big sellout.
I feel like I've given up a lot of my fantasies. I just want to do things differently, and to a lot of people that's annoying. I like weird stuff. I always hoped if we had a big success it would be on our own terms.
I kinda like messing with perception a little bit. Kind of what drugs do sometimes, and drinking. I mean, you know, you mess with your mind a little bit to see life from different angles. Within reason, if you can handle it.
Whenever I go to shows, I end up looking at what shoes the guy onstage is wearing and the jacket he's got on. And when you know everything's gonna be under scrutiny, it makes you feel more comfortable if you have cool stuff.
I don’t shake at the site of alcohol anymore. I don’t feel the need for it. If anything I’ll get stoned. I always told myself if it got to the point that it was affecting my songwriting and music that I’d stop. And it did get to the point.
I would prefer it if people thought that I didn't work hard, that I just played the guitar for three minutes a week and was like, 'Check out this song - what do you think?' That would be ideal. I would prefer telling people that I'm just truly talented.
I guess the best thing about marriage is the fact you've got the coolest partner you can imagine by your side for all the things you're going to face in your life. So far, Juliet's been there for me. She's been good for my voice, good for my everything.
In L.A., it's so sunny out all the time that even though I'm working all day I have this illusion that I'm on some kind of vacation. New York is so condensed and exciting but you stay there too long and all that turns into anxiety a little bit. It's nice to escape here and there.
I'm always writing something. I've got so much stuff, I don't know what to do with it. Some of it will be Strokes, some of it will be I don't know what - stuff for pop singers. TV themes. I've got a jar stuffed with songs, all these ideas that are just me humming into a recording device.
Now, the good of business is put above anything else, as corporations have become the new ruling body. Most decisions seem to be made like ones of a medieval king: whatever makes profit while ignoring and repressing the truth about whatever suffering it may cause (like pop music, for that matter).
When the Strokes first started playing gigs, instead of getting into a costume for the shows, we talked about how we should dress every day, in real life, like we're playing onstage. I don't really care about clothes, but it's about wearing something that gives you social confidence. Or maybe helps you pick up chicks.
Pretty much the only goal I've had since the beginning, which I still have, is just to get better, work hard, focus, and everything else will just be a bonus. As long as I'm satisfied, and I think we're getting better with every song compared to the last, then I'm satisfied and that's all I want. If we don't achieve that, then I'll be disappointed.