Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Julien Baker - Page 2

Sometimes, it feels artificial to try to come up with a solution to something that none of us know how to solve.

If I can say so without sounding presumptuous, I want to model women being collaborative instead of competitive.

When I am writing alone I try to just write for myself without thinking, like, this will go on a record.

Every girl is a singer. I wanted to learn the solos and play lead guitar. I would meticulously teach myself solos so when dudes were like, 'Oh, you're a girl, you can't play guitar,' I could rip these insane Telecaster blues solos and tell them, 'Yeah, I can burn up a fret board.'

I stan my friends!

Sometimes, what's helpful is to admit that we are discouraged and admit that we are at a loss.

Appointments' is largely just derived from pieces of dialogue with another person, and then also what's going on inside of my own mind, or a person's own mind. They're intended to be a little bit exaggerated and a satire of things that we're not sure are entirely true, or maybe biased.

I adopted this idea whether I was going to end up making music for three people in a bar or Wembley Stadium, I was always going to do music.

Some shows feel very reverent - when you're in a seated theater, no one really sings. I love it when people sing! I wish people would sing all the time. Because one of my favorite things when I get to do as a musician is step away from the microphone and listen to everyone sing together.

If 1,500 people are gonna see me and they each pay $20, I want to give them everything that I possibly can. They just made an exchange that allows me to live a dream of mine since I was a child. And that's not lost on me. So I want to expend every ounce of power and energy I have.

All my heroes are teachers.

Songs like 'Everything To Help You Sleep' or 'Claws in Your Back' took a little bit more grappling with the actual poetry for me to feel comfortable with the song. And there's a little bit more song crafting going on, and I had a specific idea in mind of the imagery I wanted to evoke.

Me at parties: 'Like, do you want to know the historical context of the prophet Jeremiah?'

I'm Type A to a fault.

There are still men in the professional or behind the scenes world that are controlling women to build credibility.

Tolerance exists.

I feel like it's a necessary part of musical development to go through that phase where you think that your favorite style of music is the only style of music, and I thought that for a while.

Ultimately, I feel like there is just a pervasive evidence of God. Though I know that is maybe a controversial thing to say.

With my first high school band ever, we would have these breaks in the song for idiotic solos, solos that were un-tasteful and would be shredding, but I needed to put them in there, and I realize now it's because we were playing shows with a whole bunch of bands that were all male.

Everyone I know has a predilection for sharing words.

My dad took me to the skate park every single weekend to see alternative bands.

I don't think I'll ever get that tour ennui. Just getting to visit New York and all these different places - I'm always so excited to look at the window. I look like a crazy tourist stumbling around... 'This is beautiful.'

My parents wouldn't let me listen to 'American Idiot.' So it felt very rebellious to go over to my friend's house after school and listen to it in secrecy.

There are so many people in Memphis who have real reasons to be angsty, but I was just a suburban white kid with all this misplaced rage.

Painting with broad strokes, I feel like a lot of journalism makes it out to be like the collective consciousness has a finite imagination for multiple women at one time in a similar genre.

There are bands who write of emotions that are very heartbreaking, touching, or relatable, but they'll be like concept records, they're about fictional characters.

Especially in the sphere of social activism, I think we tend to unwittingly conceptualize progress or revolution as black and white and having a clear beginning and end.

There's no musician who just wakes up one day and decides, 'This is what I want to do.' It takes some development.

I don't like to believe in canon.

I think people learn best and are more engaged when it's just normal relatable situations that illustrate the principles they're discussing.

When I was in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, Green Day was my formative entry to punk. I wish I could say I was listening to Minor Threat and Black Flag, but I wasn't. Bay Area punk bands were doing it right.

One thing I'm super aware of in my music when I'm writing is: 'Am I overcomplicating this?' I'll write a song about some deep existential quandary and explore all these dumb thought waves, and then think 'Is it effective to say that? Or is it effective to say one simple thing that communicates the feeling better?'

The thing about music is that it gives voice and names to anguish and also addresses how to comfort it.

I like Telecasters because they are so versatile.

When I first started playing guitar, I would sit in my room for hours and learn scales.

I can make a record with six-part string arrangements and the best musicians in the world and have it be not genuine. I'd rather make a genuine record that I truly stand behind and have it fall where it may.

I had a lot of fear about coming out as a kid.

A lot of artists I like end up being queer. Or maybe it's a subconscious thing that you can identify of, like, 'Oh this person understands the nuances of the romantic narrative of a queer person, or the social narrative of a queer person.' And then you discover, lo and behold that they are a queer person.

Music and musical instruments were proximal to my life from very early on - I took piano lessons for a brief time, but then my dad had a guitar and when he was not playing it, I would pick it up and mess with it. He jokes that I used to complain that it hurt my fingers.