Top 109 Quotes & Sayings by Justin Vernon
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Justin Vernon.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
The falsetto stuff, it must be a reaction to the black gospel singers that I really enjoy listening to.
Just in general as a person, not necessarily as a songwriter, being in cities wasn't the right fit. I couldn't escape and be in the woods in 10 minutes if I needed to. I like that in Eau Claire, I can walk to a bar or a coffee shop, and there's city-ish things, but I can also drive and in eight minutes be at my parents' land outside of town.
I know too many musicians that have to tour on the same 10 songs, and they burn out. They get back to their house, and they have no reason to write new music. They are music'd out.
I'm just happy and proud to be playing music every day. Recognition is really cool, but it can also be kind of scary.
Growing up, all I did was write about the fact that I'm from where I'm from. I was a big champion of where I was from and Wisconsin in general, and the Midwest.
I can pour myself into Bon Iver. It's a thing about self- and mental discovery, and those are all important things. But it's not 148-shows-over-a-year-and-a-half important, though. It's a machine, and it's money, and you just get put on this indie rock cart, and it's embarrassing.
I'm barely at home enough to enjoy the simple lifestyle that I want to live.
It just didn't seem to fit the story and lineage, I guess. So I just sort of surrounded 'Blood Bank' with three other songs that were very different from one other, and they all kind of came together as a palette cleanser for the last record. And I'm really excited about it.
I could go on and on and on about how we use the word 'place' in so many different ways. About how somebody might ask you 'Where you at?' And they're not asking where are you sitting, where are you living, they're asking: 'How are you doing?
I don't want the big flashing lights and red carpet, like, 'Here comes another Bon Iver album!' I just want it to be my bedroom-y thing. But that'll take a while to figure out.
The way I see it is that I grew up with a good set of values, but it was never too strict. I was always encouraged to be a free-thinking individual. I spent the first five years out of high school trying to make it work in Eau Claire, then I had to leave because there wasn't enough going on in town.
I don't really write songs anymore.
Honestly, before I settled on a name for the Bon Iver project in general, Chigliak was in the running for what I was going to name the band.
There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good story. But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are.
For the most part, I've been influenced by black singers and singers I couldn't sound like. Whenever I tried to do a dark note or a bent note, I would just sound like Hootie And The Blowfish.
I kind of miss writing songs the way that I used to write songs, in the sense that I would just sit down, and all these words that told a story would come out. There's one Bon Iver song called 'Blood Bank' that is more representative of an older lineage of songs, which I like and I sort of miss. But it just doesn't happen anymore for me.
I really have to be in a specific headspace to even begin to illuminate an idea that would create another Bon Iver record, and I'm just not there.
Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you're singing, usually you're trying to express some kind of pain or joy. I think that voice allows me to do a lot more of that.
There's a large opportunity for Bon Iver to be a special thing, even from a business standpoint - just trying to do cooler things. Every band sells t-shirts and plays certain auditoriums, but I'm sick of being like everyone else, because I'm not.
Our lives feel like these epochs, but really, we are dust in the wind.
I'm a creature of comfort.
I've been singing since I was 12. And I think that all the information is finally starting to chill out. And I don't have to be fancy. I can just kind of do things and simplify things and try to be the best singer I can be.
I'm really honored that Bon Iver gives me a platform to do whatever I want, but there's only so much time you can spend digging through yourself before you become insular. I'm not in a hurry to go back to that temperature.
I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.
I'm just living in Eau Claire, not really leaving for much. I go to the farmers market, go to the studio, go home and play with my cats. I don't know if I've ever been this happy, which is really awesome.
Even the indie rock world - which is supposed to be about truth and independence from corporate mindfulness or something - is totally subject to the paraphernalia of celebrity.
I'm super happy to see the record doing its thing and for people to like it, but for me, I had a great victory just as a person. I overstepped countless obstacles by creating that record. And the record's a metaphor for the personal steps I [took] throughout the past year.
At once i knew i was not magnificent.
I think that's all I want in life, just like peace and be able to make music and like have happiness when it's time off. Spend time with people and family, whatever.
What happens between people is so misunderstood even between the people who are having the sex.
But in any situation with long love, I don’t think it ever goes away fully. You just sort of learn where to keep it.
Hopefully, most days, you're like, "This is sweet. I wake up and do the things that I do and I'm usually smiling." That's how my dad is with his job.
I'm trying to think about stuff like that: How can a show not be just a whining guy with a guitar.
Indie rock is just as susceptible - if not more susceptible - to all the gross things about people becoming total ass clowns in music, and only worrying about money and image. I'm not interested in being a part of that.
There's that whole thing that happens in relationships - you can love someone but, as soon as they stop loving you so unconditionally that they stop being themselves, it can be so dangerous.
A lot of people change their band names because they're looking for a change of atmosphere.
A lot of people are like, "How are you going to re-do it?" I'm not worried about what people are going to say because you know people are gonna be like, "It doesn't sound like this... It sounds like this." I'm just going to make music that I know I'm supposed to make.
You never have to be scared to look to the future for opportunity.
I do think that our culture or our psyche as a country I guess, the world or whatever, we're due for a huge event. We're due for a little bit of a revolution or a spotlight or a movement. Something that feels large, something that feels like the 60s. Some sort of unification.
I don't know why you'd spend any of your time trying to remake something that you don't actually like.
I began realizing that it wasn't important for me to concern myself with the perception of truth.
Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind.
There were a bunch of moments that kept cascading. Like, when we got an opportunity to play "Letterman", it gave us an opportunity to step up. It feels good to shed that skin and rise out of it.
Life sort of shrinks and you get older, I don't know if I'm going to have time to do all the things and be all the places as I want to be. Wisconsin's really sacred for me, so no matter what happens, where I end up permanently living, I'll be spending weeks and weeks at least of the year, no matter how many years I live, in the northwestern Wisconsin area.
Irony is based on insecurity; people like to not like things because they don't understand them.
I feel like this thing [that] we're rocking back and forth like we're stuck in a snow bank and we all sort of know it. I feel like people are getting less and less pretentious and less and less hip - hopefully.
It makes sense that that's part of the story and everything, but that's part of any story of any record - where was it record and how long and what were the people doing. I think people want to know where these events are made. That's why I like the word "record."
You should be able to have happiness. If you don't have that, then you're not really bringing your whole self to the relationship.
The amount of people that I feel like... I'm not being self-demeaning, but I actually feel like I'm not as cool as them, you know what I mean?
We just met for the first time and David Byrne was like, "Hey, you want to sing on this song?" and I was like, "Yes, I do want to sing on that song." He's the most legendary dude but I wasn't thinking about how he was a legend when rehearsing. I was just thinking, "Wow, this guy really knows what he wants in his music." And that ended up being the vibe, like "Oh, you wanna try that?" "Yeah, that sounds great!"
No matter how much you care about a person, you have to be able to know that you can sit down at night and be happy with who you are without that person. That's really hard when you're a lonely emo kid.
I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind. I'm building a still, to slow down the time.
The weird thing is I feel like I'm shedding skin so fast and I'm growing and I'm becoming a new person so quickly at a rate that I'm comfortable with, yet it seems faster and more steady than an other time in my life except 16, 17, 18. I just have to sit down and listen to the ideas I'm having. And I'm not worried.
You never have to change your scene because you're always comfortable with evolving.
I don't know, it's dorky. Just like quotes and stuff. Something I want to see everyday or something I want to be there. I don't know. I can put a hole in the wall if I want. It's mine. It's very simple. It's a very tiny house, but I can do whatever I want to. I can rip up the terrible vinyl floor and recycle it. Just create a good space. A quiet place to be.
I've been trying to catch up to it. Just trying to get with it, feel behind it a little bit, but that's good actually, probably. That way, I'm still sort of understanding it.
I want to be able to write on my walls. I think that's the big thing.
The easiest thing to feel is sadness.
I'm not trying to say something super complicated. I allow myself to say certain things that mean a lot to me.
I'm trying to be like, "Hey, dude, you're super happy, this is everything you've ever dreamed of - if you don't have somebody to hold hands with right now, everything's going to be OK, bro."
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