A Quote by Benji Madden

I think what defines our band is really that, you know, we're just living our dream and making records that we love and having a good time. — © Benji Madden
I think what defines our band is really that, you know, we're just living our dream and making records that we love and having a good time.
I think I'm just trying to show a more mature side of the band and I think we've really come into the sound of our band. With every album we've grown, but I think this is just a really good picture of where we are right now and how we feel our music represents us. Under the thumb of other record companies we haven't had as much creative control and I think with this record we really did our own thing.
Ultimately, our goal was to be a band and be recognized for our songs and making records. And I think that has been the case.
I just always wanted a platform. In the past, I always dreamed of having a following and a fan base - you know, a group of people just listening and paying attention to what I was making. I think the reality kicked in that you have to make a living so that you have enough time to keep creating, you know? 'Cause if you're not making a living at this, then you're making a living working another job, and if you're working another job, you're spending all your time doing that and can't put enough time into the music.
[Martin Luther King, Jr.] would want us to celebrate him, his birth, and his legacy by acting upon his agenda, by realizing the dream, by making the minimum wage a living wage, by having not just family and medical leave, but paid sick leave for our workers, [and] by having quality, affordable child care so that our families, the power of women can be unleashed in our economy and in our society.
When we started the band, I was really like, "We just want to make a lot of records" - not quite unlike Guided By Voices' schedule. I've always thought that our live thing is what we do best, and having a really robust, big catalog makes for the most interesting live band - especially with people, at this point, traveling to see us night after night. For us to have almost 100 songs to pull from is a really cool thing. The sets can be different. They can be invigorating on an intellectual level. I definitely hope to continue to release records at an accelerated pace.
The very shape of our dreams defines us. We learn about the world and try out our thoughts and visions in them. Our dreams goad us and drive us and summon and sustain us and when we are old they comfort us. Magic is a kind of dream, and love is a dream, and hope is a dream. Without our dreams, there is no sweetness, no purpose to life.
I think when you run by someone and there's a thumbs up or encouragement, that's something that I really love. It's a brotherhood, a support and an appreciation for the effort we're all making. I think it's also about living well, living healthy, taking care of ourselves, getting in touch with ourselves, our bodies, our minds. It's a mind-body connection that running helps enhance.
There was a band very early on in our class, and I played in that band and as a teenager, I continued. It was more from my own relationship with the instruments at this time, figuring out the instrument and then having to learn different pieces that I really got into music. I really discovered the almost transcending power of music. And I think that is why I am so into it.
Our experience making 'Pieces,' all it did was confirm our passion for film making to ourselves. We were having the time of our lives, and we were in love with what we were doing.
I think 'Elbow' were considered successful even before [2008's] Seldom Seen Kid because we were living off the band. We have a great manager who keeps our coffers topped off, and we give ourselves a sensible wage with a view to having three fallow years between records. We always make sure we have enough money to make a record and not be pressured time-wise.
Having solidarity is important and having conviction and sticking with it and also consistency. You can't just have one good record, or a couple of good singles, you have to continue making good music to be considered to be a great band. Having some degree of integrity, that's it in one word.
We're very focused on making News Feed really good, making our photos experience really good, making messaging really good, and creating great location apps. That's the nature of a platform business of our scale. Most companies that are relevant to us will have some overlaps in some competitive way.
By making time to read, like making time to love, we expand our time for living.
I hope our legacy will be enduring and that people think of us as an important band. But I think Ricky's guitar playing, our style of writing, the fact that we had men and women in the band and gay and straight, I think it's an important band, and the way we wrote by jamming, we really had a different approach.
Well, a lot of our concerts do okay, and I know we still get royalty checks which still isn't that important, but again, I have to just say that we're making our records.
I don't really care about labels that much. I wouldn't really call our music retro. There are influences of things from the past, which there is in everything. I think we're quite a modern band, actually. We don't record with old equipment. We use computers and programmed drums. We don't use any guitar amplifiers. We're very much a modern band in the sense that we love computers and what they can do to music. I guess we're just good at a different sound.
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