I am always looking for a cool tee shirt; maybe one with a rock band or an old advertisement.
When I was young, I wanted to do something more low-key, like become a drummer in a rock band.
I wish I could tell you me and my rock band were traveling around, strung out. No, we were a family band. Straight Partridge Family.
I can imagine myself as an old man writing music for choir or orchestra. I don't know that I'll be touring six months out of the year in a rock band when I'm 60.
I think that becoming a successful rock band is a little like becoming a professional athlete. Nobody plans on it.
I've always been in rock bands. I was in a rock band with my brother in high school. Then I was playing classical guitar recitals, and people said, 'You know, you can't really do both things.' My intuition told me they were wrong. Somehow, what was interesting about me was that I had those two things in my life.
My main professional experience is touring in a rock band.
I can't just play in a rock band. The National is a great, exciting band to play in. We improvise a lot onstage, and it's very intense, but after a while, I crave other kinds of experiences.
A lot of people ask how I ended up doing classical music given that I'm in a rock band. The truth is that it's the other way around. I was trained as a classical musician and then started playing in a rock band later.
The danger of a rock band is repeating oneself. It's our greatest fear - that it evolves into the myopia of a semi-successful band that's in love with its own shadow.
