Top 98 Quotes & Sayings by Tricky

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English musician Tricky.

Last updated on November 5, 2024.

Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws, better known by his stage name Tricky, is a British record producer and rapper. Born and raised in Bristol, he began his career as an early member of the band Massive Attack alongside Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall & Andrew Vowles. He embarked on a solo career with his debut album, Maxinquaye, in 1995. The release won Tricky popular acclaim and marked the beginning of a lengthy collaborative partnership with vocalist Martina Topley-Bird. He released four more studio albums before the end of the decade, including Pre-Millennium Tension and the pseudonymous Nearly God, both in 1996. He has gone on to release nine studio albums since 2000, most recently Fall to Pieces (2020). In 2016, he joined Massive Attack on stage for the first time in two decades while continuing his solo career.

English - Musician | Born: January 27, 1968

Source: Wikipedia

I can be anything I want when I do an album. I can be vulnerable, I can be weak, I can be nasty, I can be strong, I can be good, I can be bad. They're all in there - but in society you don't get to use all these personalities because you're trained.

Tricky

Being naive I think is how you construct new music. When you start thinking too much what is it you're doing? You're just making an album. You're not doing brain surgery. If you take it too seriously you start taking yourself too seriously.

Tricky

If I wasn't doing music, I might have been a builder.

Tricky

I'm not just a kid from Knowle West trying to build a future, I have some experience, I can experiment... and honestly, musically, I can't be touched.

Tricky

This ain't bad-guy talk, cos I'm not a bad guy. But people don't realise what fear can do. I've had situations where I've been so scared, where I can't sleep, I can't eat, and it's gone on for weeks and it's ruining my life. It makes you sick, it makes you mentally ill.

Tricky

A guy threw a stone at my head when I was eight. I told my nan, and she said, 'Get a bigger stone.' That's what I got programmed into me. And sometimes I find it a struggle to get it out of me.

Tricky

The Internet is like walking into a room in your house you never knew was there and, like, it's full of thousands of people who have been listening to everything you've been doing and saying the whole time! Scary.

Tricky

Yes, well, on stage I'm a different person, very aggressive, very tense. That's not me because I'm humble and polite, unless someone is rude to me.

Tricky

A lot of young people have not a clue what being famous entails. When you lose your anonymity you can't walk down the street without people looking at you.

Tricky

I lived in New Jersey in a massive house, not a 50 Cent mansion, but four bedrooms, and I had acres of land.

Tricky

When I lived in Knowle West, I must have been the same person I am now. It wasn't like someone came and sprinkled superstar dust on me. So that means all the kids who come from that kind of background can do what I'm doing. They're superstars just waiting to happen.

Tricky

When I'm not on tour, my band have to do pantomime. I want to do big gigs to earn them money.

Tricky

I've had a bit of a crazy life. So writing lyrics in songs is easy for me.

Tricky

I grew up in a mixed-race family in Bristol. My cousin was this white guy who was interested in Parliament, Marc Bolan, Bowie. His friends were football thugs and while I was getting ready for bed, they'd be listening to all that music. When I was older, I'd go to a Jamaican sound system and there were no white people.

Tricky

I wouldn't work with Damon Albarn again.

Tricky

What I consider normal ain't really normal.

Tricky

My head works a little faster than people around me sometimes and it can be quite painful. It was a problem for me in school because I couldn't sit down long enough. I couldn't concentrate. So I didn't go to classes very much.

Tricky

Sometimes I walk down the street and hear people whisper 'that's Tricky' and I look back, and I see them looking back, then that affects everything I do - the way I walk the way I talk. It stops you being real.

Tricky

Someone at Hollywood Records said, 'Are you into Alanis Morissette?' I said 'Yeah, she sells 26 million albums, of course. It would be perverse if she works with me, but I don't think you can get her.' A week later they say she's coming down the studio.

Tricky

I've got one younger brother who can do prison like his breakfast, but I'm not built for it.

Tricky

The Internet is incredible!

Tricky

I never compromised myself musically.

Tricky

I can't afford to take advice.

Tricky

Sometimes I could do with a shoulder to cry on, someone to come home and talk to.

Tricky

Because I didn't come from money I didn't know to manage it.

Tricky

I've learned to enjoy a very simple lifestyle.

Tricky

I've met a couple of total wrecks who've loved Bjork and ended up broken hearted. I didn't love her.

Tricky

I don't like creepy-crawly stuff. Girls can pick up a spider and just chuck it out of the window. No way, I'm not doing that. I actually scream.

Tricky

I don't believe in death. I just don't think all that love and all that energy can just disappear into nothing.

Tricky

I'm not very good with roughing it.

Tricky

I've a kinship with women. That's why I've always put women in strong positions in music.

Tricky

I can remember arguing for two days with Mark Saunders about 'Strugglin'.' He said: 'This can't work. It's not musically correct.' And I said: 'If I can hear it in my brain you can't tell me it can't work.'

Tricky

I have no time for perfection.

Tricky

My music life is great. It's in the real world, that's where I have the problem, sometimes relating to people. I can be angry, you know, still really dark in my mind.

Tricky

For a child, it's not so much scary, it's surreal; there was a lot of fighting in my great-grandmother's house; you'd go there and then someone would meet up and there'd be a fight; I've seen my uncles fight in the street, I've seen my grandmother fight in the street, it becomes normal.

Tricky

I never like something too live or too electronic. I'll take a bit of both.

Tricky

I spend 70% of my time laughing. I don't walk around all dark. I might take my photos like that because I'm not a clown. But I'm a really soft, feminine, gentle, normal guy.

Tricky

I can experiment, I can be honest, and honestly, musically, I can't be touched.

Tricky

The Queen wanted me to do the music for the 2000 celebrations at the Dome. I went down to these offices at Buckingham Palace and had a meeting with these people, and I was like, 'Alright how much?' And they said, 'Well no, it's for the Queen.' They thought because it's such a huge thing, I'd do it for free! So I turned that down.

Tricky

This album, 'ununiform,' I didn't even have to record it if I didn't want to.

Tricky

I had an uncle who adored Al Green. He was white, but he only listened to black music.

Tricky

I never sold out. I never made an album to buy a house.

Tricky

The music I should be doing is music that you haven't heard before - whether you like it or not. I don't want to just repeat.

Tricky

She ain't my queen. My grandmother is my queen, and my auntie, my cousin, my daughters... the Queen's never done anything for me.

Tricky

Oh, I still like dresses. I've still got plenty of them. It's just that I don't put them on specially for photo-shoots anymore. It's just part of my everyday life.

Tricky

Bjork was so good to me. She's very independent and she doesn't suck your energy. She lets you be you. She's a free spirit so she knows how to be with a free spirit. That's the only sort of woman I could see myself staying with.

Tricky

I used to see a psychiatrist in New York but I got bored.

Tricky

I'll play about with different sounds in the studio with no concept of music at all. I'll just build up a song in layers and when it sounds all right and gives me a vibe, that's enough, and I'll add vocals and move on.

Tricky

The royal family don't mean nothing.

Tricky

I cry at absolutely anything. 'Lethal Weapon,' the fight scene at the end - you can see it on YouTube.

Tricky

9/11 is probably the main reason I didn't release an album for five years.

Tricky

When my mother died, we had the coffin at home. Like, old-school - you have the coffin at home so all the people can come and see the person. And her coffin was next to my room, so I used to go in and stand on a chair and look at her. You know, it's open coffin and stuff.

Tricky

I'd love to be part Apache Indian. But I'm from Bristol. No Apaches there mate.

Tricky

I always thought you went out and entertained people and got nothing back in return. But in the last year, I've realised that what the crowd gives you is so amazing, that sometimes I just stand onstage and cry.

Tricky

Madonna working with Justin Timberlake is supposed be cool but I don't think there's anything cool about it.

Tricky

Sometimes I'm in a bad mood, sometimes I'm in a good mood. It's like everyone else.

Tricky

I'm like anyone else, if I'm not having a good time you'll hear it.

Tricky

I think Kylie's underrated... Cool is knowing yourself and I think Kylie Minogue really knows who she is and doesn't try to be anything else.

Tricky

Fear can be very dangerous. You should never make someone too scared of you.

Tricky

As a musician to hang out with a politician, I think it's disgusting.