Top 25 Quotes & Sayings by Matt Tong

When you grow up, you're told that rock 'n' roll is the only authentic way to express yourself. Live instrumentation, singer, live drums. You're told that's the best medium to communicate.

After a while, you start to believe that your opinions are more valid than everyone else's. It can be hard to be humble about making really good music; you really believe that you're a savior to music. That's why bands don't like each other.

I want the words to be read in conjunction with the music.

I have a real problem with rock music because it seems that lineage doesn't really exist.

I'm really excited about the remixes. I've always been a fan of electronic music and I'm thinking about that very seriously for the next record as well.

Everyone tries to research your background. I have a real fear of celebrity and exposing my real self.

It's frustrating that people attribute something to certain songs and that's not what they're about at all.

I never saw the point in listening to only one thing. The low art/high art distinction comes from the establishment telling me how I'm supposed to think.

I'm not excited when bands strip things down. I'm not excited by the White Stripes.

The live experience and the recorded experience are totally different. When you're recording an album, you won't be able to immerse people in sound. When you play live, you want to grab people on the visceral level. They're completely different.

I think there's real currency in pop culture.

I don't really believe in the use of drum machines live.

I never understood the low art/high art distinction.

I'm finding it hard to listen to other rock bands. It's been hard for me for a long time, but now I can't listen to any new bands at all.

You want to reach people on a real level and have a fan base that understands you.

I feel that's important that I have some place to go that isn't on the cover of a magazine. I signed up to make music.

You can't help hearing things that are popular when you're young and impressionable.

I think Paris Hilton is really our generation's Marilyn Monroe. She's the image of the youth today. There's a real fascination with Paris, ranging on the obsessive. I'm repulsed by her, but because of her notoriety, she has access to an audience.

Youth is so cynical. There's never anything to believe in as a teen.

Nobody starts a band to make friends; you do it because of the music.

Even that word depends on what you mean by pop. I mean, pop music has currency. It could just be about that girl who's in love with you.

Patriotism is a joke in the UK.

There's too much rock that relies a fetishism or nostalgia for the old ways. That's a real enemy to music.

There's so much to be said for making your guitar sound like a synthesizer and try to make your drummer sound like a drum machine.

There's so much that you can do if you mimic your style to a drum machine. I think that's far more exciting.