I read Henry Miller's 'Nexus,' 'Sexus' and 'Plexus' the summer after I graduated from college. It cemented my decision to spurn any and all careers.
David Berman
Like they used to say about Joe Montana, he threw soft because he couldn't throw hard. He was successful because he didn't try to do what he couldn't. I couldn't rock out harder than everybody, or overpower people with mastery like Jack White of the White Stripes, so why try? That's why I've always worked harder on words.
I am not only neither Christian nor Jewish, but said to be in between, and I feel the same way about being from the South and being from the North. I write with my left hand but I throw a ball with my right hand.
I have bad vision, but it's not distorted. It's low power!
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 have always had a blank spot where my regret is supposed to be.
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.
The world of commerce is a kind of a purgatory itself.
I'm interested in direct communication about domestic life.
Fan reaction is so out-sized and hyperbolic in rock music compared to other arts.
It must be very strange to live in the world of Willie Nelson or Bruce Springsteen or Pearl Jam. I don't know what kind of handle they have on their own loss of talent.
I try every day and every night to find a movie or a TV show that I can watch, but I just can't make it past ten minutes of anything.
I trust myself.
I always had a background belief in God. In other words, instinctually I've never doubted that we are not alone.
People younger than me trust me. People my age do not. They think I'm up to something. And I've often felt this.
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.
Ever since I was a little kid, I've always felt un-trusted.
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.
A lot of the Jews I met in Israel, almost all of them are secular. They get turned off by their religion, in the same way that Americans get turned off Christianity by people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robinson.
Obviously there was the idea that we could sell more records if we played live, but I guess I didn't care enough to sell more records to do that.
Allen Ginsburg was wrong about a lot of things, but especially when he said, 'First thought, best thought.'
Everything I write goes through a lot of drafts. A hundred rewrites is not unusual for me to go through - the last fifty maybe just going back and forth on a single line or word selection.
I made records for 20 years, I lived off it. But people would say I made so many mistakes, I did so many things you're not supposed to do. I had a band name nobody could say. I didn't play live. I never practiced, I never got better at my instrument.
I've had to stop going to the nearest grocery store that seems to play Shania Twain's 'Forever and For Always' whenever I'm there. It's hard to shop for frozen entrees through cold-air blasted tears. Feels good on a flushed face though.
I used to consider myself weak.
I've never been from a certain group. I've always reserved a space for myself where I'm unattached to any group, but the part of Judaism that I really take away, that means something to me, is the part about community.
I mean, I wasn't fortunate enough to have ever experienced starting out with a band and sticking with them, so that would be interesting to me. People whose bands start out like that, when they break up it's always terrible.
Mostly i write on an unplugged Mustang or a Baby Taylor.
My great grandfather was the last practicing Jew in my family. He died in 1982.
I have this Martin electric/acoustic that's made of black formica. Really cool.
In 2004, I don't think any Silver Jews fan was probably expecting another record.
For the first 12 years of recording I would finish the album, then on the day it came out I'd never hear the songs again.
Some nights I'm funny with the between-song commentary, some nights I'm not. I have no control over this. I pace the stage a lot and struggle with the mic stand in a ridiculous way.
I'm not convinced I have fans.
I guess on all Silver Jews records, it's extremely male-centric.
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.
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.
Natalie Maines has a voice for the centuries.
I imagine that I'm less famous than the 15th ranked bowler in the world.
My father is a despicable man.
I always loved bands with mystique.
I grew up the son of a businessman. And I didn't get into music to be a businessman.
If critics were harder on the musicians that they love, there would be better songs. But as they grow older and they lose their talent, critics refuse to let them know that and protect them, and they get to the point where they put out music that just isn't up to the levels where they've already been.
I heard Springsteen was an unhappy person. I don't know, I haven't read his biography. But a lot of people in my field should be a lot more unhappy than they are.
I can't imagine putting my name on a t-shirt. For someone to wear my name? Me? It's ridiculous.
I don't have time for language poetry anymore. I don't want to throw people off anymore.
Yeah, once the song is written, it just complexifies the profile of it to have the music and the words at odds. It comes naturally to me. A lot of my music is like that.
