I guess on all Silver Jews records, it's extremely male-centric.
I'm not the type to demand affirmation or to worry that I'll be forgotten. I'm more the type to dare the world to forget me.
I'm not a good singer.
Silver Jews was always a coolection of old friends. Uncoolection.
In a lot of ways, I wouldn't be an artist in another time. I need to exist in a time where high and low art mix easily.
For a long time, I've struggled very, very much with what people call treatment-resistant depression.
Ever since I was a little kid, I've always felt un-trusted.
I want so many artists that I care about to go away and grow up, and have been amazed at how hard that is for some people to do.
I was much further along as a poet than as a songwriter, but the songs were getting more attention. They were doing what art is supposed to do, mixing it up with people.
My faith was undermined by the same sort of things that make people skeptics of religion in general. Part of it was, there was no real place for me in Judaism. Maybe if there was I would've hung in there, but I was attracted to the social-justice aspects of Judaism, and I was attracted to the prophets.
Fan reaction is so out-sized and hyperbolic in rock music compared to other arts.
It's a Gen X thing to be okay with going unnoticed or unrated or untouched. To be free from strangers' expectations, or anger. People got angry at me when I stopped making music because it seemed I was devaluing everything.
My father is a despicable man.
I'm interested in direct communication about domestic life.
In the beginning, because of the Pavement thing, we were able to sell a certain amount of records. We were able to sell not such a great amount of records, but enough to live on. So there was no incentive to do what didn't come naturally.
I don't think any songwriter who comes up through playing clubs can really claim to have independently developed their art. All along the way so much information is coming, the writer inside the performer unconsciously reacts to all of that. By the time they get to be thirty, the writer is gone.
Natalie Maines has a voice for the centuries.
I trust myself.
I imagine that I'm less famous than the 15th ranked bowler in the world.
I always loved bands with mystique.
