Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You know, when your poisoning your body night after night after night, you end up chipping a couple years off your life. I've always wanted to be able to do this and now that I am, it's hard to complain.
I'm not really good at writing sad sappy ballads. In terms of the lyrics not matching the vibe of the music, that's kind of the way my career has gone; everyone is a little confused about it all the time.
I do like touring. Sometimes it's crazy. We're really lucky and we've gone all over the world. You can't complain about getting paid to see the world. I've had to reel myself in a little bit at some points.
When we were in Beijing, they were all "it's an honor, you're playing at the oldest rock club in Beijing". And I was all "oh crazy how old is it?" And then were all: "5 years old."Asia is just very different.
One thing I hear a lot is, 'Dude, my mom loves your record,' or 'I got it for my dad for Christmas.' I'm essentially doing dad rock. Which is great, because I love Steely Dan, you know? Nothing wrong with dad rock!
I had a band called the Sound Of Love and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape and that was that.
I had a band called the Sound Of Love, and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape, and that was that.
Usually when festivals are really huge it's kind of weird. It's totally fun for me and my band to play in front of a crowd that doesn't necessarily know who we are, but festivals get pretty impersonal when they get super large.
My music is kind of laid back, it doesn't have super crispy, shiny production, and I'm not singing my heart out or whatever. But that whole idea of blogs declaring: "this is the new denomination for this sound" is ridiculous to me.
For me, it's all about the Canadian tuxedo, and maybe a bolero. The province I grew up in in Alberta is pretty much the denim capital of Canada. The first premier of Alberta started Grand Western Garment, which Levi's bought later on.
'Salad Days' refers to a youthful or innocent period. And a lot of people having been asking me already so you jaded? And I'm not, I'm 23. It's me reflecting, I had to re-learn to have fun with music and I had to re-count my blessings.
The songs that I'm able to write are the songs I'm able to write, whatever they may be. The path I've cut for myself is pop music - love-y pop music. That's what I enjoy doing. And I don't think I'm going to get sick of it anytime soon.
I've recorded at home since I was a teenager, and I'm able to sit here in my underwear and keep trying different things until something works. I think if I did that in a studio the engineer would be like, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
A lot of people assume I have a great hat collection, but kids steal my hats at every show. I've had all these hats that I've loved, but now they're in some little kids' possession. It's difficult to replenish. I don't think the kids realize this.
Everybody's a multifaceted, emotional, living being, I think. Sometimes it's fun to goof around, sometimes you've got to think about things, sometimes you've got to be strange, and then you've got to be jiggly. That's just what being a human's all about.
If people are talking about you, that's great. You start making more money, that's great. You get to go to weird places, that's great. The music industry is weird, especially with the Internet. People are calling you all kinds of weird stuff, like 'jangly.'
I love Jonathan Richman - I love a lot of his music, and the thing I really like about him is his attitude. He seems very happy, and the way he performs is like, 'Don't worry, everybody, just get into it. I'm just having fun; I like when you guys are having fun.'
I like guitar. It just turned out that it's the instrument I learned to play. I have a lot of respect for it, and I'm learning more and more every day. For me, the classic band setup - guitars, drums, bass - will stay fresh forever. I don't know. I'm still into it.
A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something like that, I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them.
I actually had a really nice guitar as a teenager. I took jazz guitar, so my mom bought me this probably $1,600 guitar. But I got really into garage rock and local bands, and I noticed they played really crappy guitars. So I thought, 'Hey, I should get a crappy guitar, too!'
In Europe, people tend to be very respectful. They try not to make too much noise at inappropriate times. In other countries, people can be very still. Sometimes I'm not sure if a crowd is into it until the end, when they usually want me to do something crazy for the encore.
With the "old dog" stuff, maybe the term "old" is in there, but I'm 26. I'm not that old. It's mostly like, "Ah, you dirty old dog!" I'm saying it more like that. I'm still ripping. I'm ready to rip. I'll make a bunch more records and have a nice time. We'll see what happens.
I'm just trying to have fun, and maybe the way I hold myself kind of freaks people out. I don't feel like an outsider, and I think my friends feel the same way I do. Now that we're playing to larger audiences, maybe we're weird to some people. But I'm trying to express what I am.
The way I'm portrayed on the Internet is partly my doing, but it's partly the people that are presenting it so, you know, people come to know this strange version of a human. It can be pretty weird because people think I'm digging through dumpsters and smell like crap all the time.
I get asked that a lot: "What do you think your role is, with all the people that look up to you?" I'm an entertainer, you know? I'm not trying to bombard anybody with anything, but at the same time, face-to-face or in real life, if I'm talking to some kid, I have opinions just like everybody else does.
[My House By The Water] is a nice instrumental track. The sound of the water is from the same place where the front photo was taken. I live really close to the airport, so there's also planes going over. It's kind of to remind me of living in there, because I'm not gonna be living in there for very much longer.
I first started going to shows when I was about 16 - seeing local bands. I mean, I loved music before that, and I played a bit of guitar when I was younger and thought maybe I'd become a guitar teacher or something, but when I saw other kids doing it, I was like, 'Whoa, these are great bands! I can do it, too.'
I write for myself; I'm trying to keep myself interested in the music. But at the same time, I want to make the songs relatable in a way; I want to keep melodies pretty simple and the lyrics open-ended so that people could maybe relate them to their own life in different ways. Something for everybody to have a piece of.
I really love a lot of Japanese music, like Ryuichi Sakamoto and this guy I got really into, Tatsuro Yamashita. When I was a little younger, I thought synthesizers meant Kraftwerk, cold, robotic, weird, Autobahn. But these guys are having a lot of fun on these things. Sometimes. Sometimes it's very somber. They could go either way.
The crowd can be a little different in some places. For example, in Europe, people tend to be very respectful. They try not to make too much noise at inappropriate times. In other countries, people can be very still. Sometimes I'm not sure if a crowd is into it until the end, when they usually want me to do something crazy for the encore.
I don't think anybody has a choice. Everybody has to kind of interact with all the craziness right now. I don't like to engage - a lot of people made a point of doing the social media thing, and I think that social media is complete trash, so I treat it like that. I like Instagram. I like the funny photos. Other than that, it's not for me.
I mean, Lady Gaga is trying to be a freak or whatever but that quality of being very meaningly and heartfelt, but also having a sense of humor about it, bands don't do that anymore. Lady Gaga's songs are cheesy. The Beatles weren't cheesy. That's the hardest thing with music: to not be cheesy, but also be meaningful. That's the goal, I think.
I do get labeled as a guitar band, but the only reason is that's the instrument I know how to play. The guitar is serving the song I'm writing. But I'm learning how to play keyboard better now so that'll start serving the song as well; it'll be another flavor. I'm not going to switch it up with big, fat drum machine beats and real swoopy synths, but yeah...
We went on tour with Phoenix. I don't really know anything about Phoenix I'd heard a couple songs. And I thought, I don't really know if I want to go on this, it's kind of weird, kind of a pain in the ass for us. But everyone was like YOU HAVE TO DO IT, it's going to be so good for your career. And I mean I don't know if it was good for our career but the guys in the band were super huge sweethearts.
The time came around where the label was like, "Well, if you want something to come out in early 2017, it's going to have to be done by, like, so-and-so." So I plucked some of the old songs and wrote some new ones. Everybody keeps asking me, "Is this your L.A. record?" I was doing songs in a bedroom in New York, I was doing it in a bedroom in L.A. The only difference is when I look out the window, there's palm trees instead of snow.
Over a year before I started recording Salad Days, so I finally sat down and was like I have to do this. And it did feel like a chore. I was looking at it in a completely wrong way, trying to one up myself. Just the typical sophomore album bullshit. The main thing I got out of it is I eventually gave up on all that stuff. I had to re-learn why I liked making music in the first place, why I liked recording in my room all the time. Because it's fun. It's fun for me.
[Chamber of Reflection off of Salad Days]I think it's probably that one. There's no guitar on that song, I've never recorded a song with absolutely no guitar, which is interesting. The idea behind it, well it's a Free Mason reference because before they become Free Mason's they had to go into this room called the Chamber of Reflection where they think about the life they brought with them, the life they've lived up until this point and all their wrong and right doings. And that's basically what I did with this album.