A Quote by Andrew VanWyngarden

Usually when I write lyrics I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of other stuff. Some of my favourite lyricists are like Lou Reed, kind of the classics - Bob Dylan and stuff like that.
A lot of punk rock. I listen to various stuff just cuz my friends now listen to a lot of different bands. I listen to a lot of underground stuff like jungle music.
One month I'll be completely obsessed with Bob Dylan and the next Arcade Fire. I like early Elton John and David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I listen to a lot of American bands. But I like listening to new bands, too.
I know a lot of other actors that don't like to look at other references to their characters and things. But I like it. I always look at everything, I read all the books. I read Dieter's "Escape from Laos." I watched the documentary again and again and again. I recorded it just to listen to him a lot. I just don't suffer from feeling like I'm getting caught into an imitation. I just feel like I want to steal some good stuff if it's in there.
I don't think I ever wrote a song. I can write a lot of jokes, but when I try to write lyrics they're the most direct, non-figurative words, like, 'I like you, I like you,'... and that's it, for the whole song. People would go, 'Ooh, this guy's Dylan or something.' It gives me a lot more respect for songwriters, actually.
My ears are open to all sorts of stuff. I appreciate some of the big electro house guys.I love their music but I also like a lot of the stuff coming out of the U.K. Future garage stuff. A lot of stuff like that.
For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.
Some of my favourites... there's the classics like Blur and Oasis and Pulp, Suede and The Charlatans, The La's, The Smiths, The Cure, stuff like that. That was a huge part of my teen-years and bands I still listen to right through to this day, but it had a huge bearing on me as a teen and it was some of my favourite music, and is still to this day some of my favourite music.
Lyrics should not need to stand on their own; many of [Bob] Dylan's do, but in common with other great lyricists, he has written plenty that falters on the page but soars in song.
Scouting is like CIA work and investigative work. You create a lot of stuff and try a lot of stuff. Some works and some doesn't. I try to get creative.
Some of the fanmail is interesting! Some of it's the lyrics to the songs and stuff, and they'll like, send me their favourite lines, which is cool to...know what people are liking. Most of them are really cool to read.
If I was to meet Lou Reed or Bob Dylan, I would be totally helpless. Writers and musicians make me feel completely starstruck.
I really don't try to force the creative process. I'm really jealous of those other rappers who just hear a beat and write a song within minutes. I know a lot of rappers like that. I'm the type of artist who kind of has to sit with some stuff for a while.
I listen to a lot of crazy stuff like pop, techno, rock, hip-hop, rap, baladas, bachata...my iPod is crazy. I like listening to a lot of stuff in different languages, so my music is always out there for me.
We didn't have the phrase 'style icon' when I was young, but I have to say, I really copied Bob Dylan when I was younger: a little bit of Bob Dylan or a lot of Bob Dylan and the French symbolist poets - I liked how they dressed - and Catholic school boys.
I still listen to a lot of the classics from Bob Dylan and John Martin, but I love electronic music as well. I'm a big fan of an Australian DJ and producer called Flume, who I think is incredible. He should be more successful in the U.K.!
I don't listen to a lot of new stuff. I just like the old stuff. It's all quite dramatic and atmospheric. You'd have an entire story in song. I never listen to, like, white music - I couldn't sing you a Zeppelin or Floyd song.
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