Top 115 Quotes & Sayings by Kurt Vile - Page 2

I feel like my music is like - there are always new influences in there.

It was just the next logical step from making succinct pop songs. What do you do after that? You make pop songs that are longer and more epic, that push the envelope. Imagine your favourite song, or something that you play over and over in the car, except that you don't have to start it over as much.

Humor is important. Nothing against bands that are always a downer, but the reality is - it just becomes theater.

I think if you just travel in general, it allows you to step outside of yourself and whatever you're familiar with.

There's so many FM hits that I love. Bob Seger, there's two of his songs that I love. I would probably love more, but I don't sit around listening to Bob Seger records. It's the same thing with Tom Petty; he writes amazing hits, but it's not often that I sit around at home listening to a whole Tom Petty album.

Some people are so sad that, at times, that's what gets on my nerves - if they just hammer the doom, with no comic relief whatsoever.

There's so many ways you can play one chord progression that the repetition isn't ever exactly the same.

Even when I haven't played in a while, I can sit down and start with a chord, and just drop into it. It's like this tunnel I go into. The zone is where I want to live.

I just try to make as much money as possible. However I can do it. With as much integrity as I can have.

It's gotta feel natural. I'm always into that, and after awhile, if I am working on a song too long and trying to make something out of it that it's not... it's best just to stop and move on.

I've always been a music fan. I played trumpet. When I was in 4th grade, we were getting demos from the music teacher about different instruments we could play, and I said I wanted to play the trumpet right away. It was easy: it just had three valves.

I like a well-rounded life. All of this work is kind of useless if you don't have something good to come home to.

My family was always playing music; I always enjoyed it. My cousin, who is a little older than me, he started playing music, so I wanted to, also. I asked my dad for a guitar, and he got me a banjo, so that was my introduction to playing. I played it like a guitar. I had a few lessons, learned out a few chords, and figured it out right away.

If somebody else wanted to do a song for McDonald's, that's up to them. I wouldn't do something like that, but whatever.

When I write, I tend to tap into this human wondering vibe that could come off negative, but it's really not.

The real reason I was lo-fi before was really just because that's what I could afford.

I proved myself with 'Smoke Ring.' It was me maturing. I made a good pop record.

I feel like if you sit down and have an assistant engineer and a producer in a top-notch studio and everyone sets up all the mikes perfect, all of a sudden it's really hard to live that melancholy song. It's hard to really live it in the moment.

I'm definitely influenced by Animal Collective. I watched them early on.

If I sit in the same square room and work on something too long, I feel like you just go mad.

I've gotten a lot more paranoid in my older age.

I'm just used to the L.A. music life.

There comes a time when you've toured a ton, and a time to be inspired again. Listen to awesome jazz records that are mellow with no words, and just sit there and read a book, or space out on your couch. And eventually, all that inspiration comes.

Nobody wants a complainer.

Influence is all osmosis.

I find that I get nervous before I play. Even sound checks can give me anxiety and screw with my mind. But as long as I can play a little acoustic guitar backstage if I'm feeling nervous, so I don't have to walk in there cold turkey, I'll be fine.

After I play a gig, I'm like a different person: I have superhuman strength.

I'm joking all the time with my friends, even when we're talking about serious things.

I'm the kind of performer who gets lost on stage. I can tap into this soulful haze.

If I had known I'd be on Matador back then in my childhood, it would have blown my mind.

I want really badly to just be funny in a movie but be close to myself.

I don't have anything to get off my chest. I'm not itching to prove myself anymore.

I feel like when I say something sad, I mean it.

I'll know when a song's really awesome, for sure, and I get super stoked, and I'm so high when I'm hearing it back, but then you sit with the record forever. You're mixing it, and you can really just over-think everything.

Life is so beautiful, but there are all these scary things you can't deny.

When I first got the record deal, I thought it felt like I won the lottery. But I always worked hard at it.

I definitely have relapses of stress. Most human beings are like that. But I think, ultimately, music is a therapeutic situation. Once you start playing, it all just gets resolved.

Critics always get the lyrics wrong in reviews, which is amusing - especially when they use them against you.

On one level, we're on Matador, but our amps still might explode on stage, or they'll be an echo in the mic. It's like climbing a ladder. I like to climb it really slowly. I could probably get really professional right away, but I like to take baby steps and find my own way.

I'm always working on music.

People do get mad at me for falling asleep sometimes, and it's the most frustrating thing. I can't help it.

I'll know when a song's really awesome, for sure, and I get super stoked and I'm so high when I'm hearing it back, but then you sit with the record forever. You're mixing it and you can really just over-think everything. I'll go back and forth all the time.

There's downtime in music, which obviously is necessary or else you'd lose your mind in other ways, but if we're on tour and there's electricity from the audience, if you're getting a good response, then that's the positive side of the mojo where I could feel cocky and just know I'm doing good and then there's a time all of a sudden when you're alone and you just don't know if people will like it.

I use a lot of humor in my writing. But it's completely black humor.

There were a few verses that I wrote literally on the spot. But the concept was there. It's about being in your own world musically and waking up in the morning and walking outside and being consumed by everything around you. Just being aware of the good things in art and music and life. It's also about how the world is at a boiling point, in a way.

I was used to hanging out late after playing a gig - you mix adrenaline with alcohol and you can stay up all night.

I know most of my records are real good but I know that there are definitely things I would've changed at the end of the day. I work on things forever, and there are things I wish I didn't do, but ultimately I know the records are good. I kind of let go of big expectations, maybe because hopefully that means if I don't have them, that it'll do really well, but you just never know.

A lot of getting a song done is booking the studio time. I'm the kind of person who will set time aside to do something and then do everything but that thing.

I've always been a deep sleeper; because I come from such a large family - there are 10 kids - I could sleep through anything.

Some people think they are such geniuses and just thought of that. They think they are so smart, like they say "All this talk about Kurt Vile and no one asks him where he got his stupid name from," or, "No one asks where he stole his name from." And I'm like, "Oh, you're a genius."

Not that Matador is a major label, but its major enough for me. On one level we're on Matador, but our amps still might explode on stage or they'll be an echo in the mic. It's like climbing a ladder. I like to climb it really slowly. I could probably get really professional right away, but I like to take baby steps and find my own way.

I'd go to a more civil party just to socialize, and I didn't know what to do with myself. So I drank a shot of tequila. And then I drank another one. I probably had four or five shots. I was like, "Tequila! It wakes you right up!" But no.

Maybe I'm biased because I'm from there. It's close enough to New York but it's not swallowed up by New York's hustle and bustle. Philly's busy enough. There are tons of record stores and record-head friends and plenty of D.I.Y. shows. It's a place where people pass through and bands don't usually skip on tour. There are lots of music resources but it's not too over the top.

I've never gotten in too much trouble with alcohol. I've never had a drinking problem, really.

I guess some people like to just stick with their sound, like Weezer or something, but I think I just try to keep it as close to my real life, in a Neil Young sort of way, as possible.