A Quote by Jim James

I can't understand how some bands are criticized for doing something different and other bands are rewarded for doing things different. At the end of the day, I throw my hands up in the air and say, "F**k it." I've come to accept that no matter what we do, there's going to be somebody out there on the Internet that says it's a piece of s**t and somebody who says they really like it. That's happened with every single album we've put out.
I started out playing big bands shows and different things. I was with several different small bands and groups, doing comedy and singing, emceeing, and I got a break with a very big star of the late fifties whose name was Tommy Sands.
He likes a day in the studio to end, he says, "when my knees are all skinned up and my pants are wet and my hair's off to one side and I feel like I've been in the foxhole all day. I don't think comfort is good for music. It's good to come out with skinned knuckles after wrestling with something you can't see. I like it when you come home at the end of the day from recording and someone says, "What happened to your hand?" And you don't even know. When you're in that place, you can dance on a broken ankle.
The only thing I say I consciously do is I definitely make an effort to work on different styles of music: not working on too many post-rock bands, or too many heavy bands, or too many folk bands, or just whatever. I have no desire to be known as somebody that just works on a single style of music and would rather avoid it, actually.
I really like playing other people. There is no other feeling like it, to have a different voice come out of you and to have a different life for a couple of hours. I like being myself. But maybe it's like you ride a bike every day and someone says, 'For two hours tonight do you want to ride this Harley?' You'd be like, 'OK yeah!'
I really like playing other people. There is no other feeling like it, to have a different voice come out of you and to have a different life for a couple of hours. I like being myself. But maybe it's like you ride a bike every day and someone says, 'For two hours tonight do you want to ride this Harley?' You'd be like, 'OK yeah!
I struggle with my training sometimes. The thing I look at is if you keep getting up and moving forward, you'll be successful. That's the way I've lived my life. I'm not going to stop doing something because somebody says it's time. I'm going to stop it when my body says it's over or the fans say, 'we're done watching you.'
All I really wanted to do was make an album that was going to be just back to what I like to do... And it was a coincidence that these new bands, this new wave of bands, were doing Alice and Iggy rock.
I think there are plenty of good bands out there, but the great bands aren't affected by what's going on around them, trends and all that and competing with other bands and wanting to be the biggest, we find that happens a lot. Bands look at other bands and think: that's what I want, you know? I think that remaining.
I think there's a lot more freedom in doing the solo thing. It's almost like switching bands every time I do an album. Once this fourth one is out, I think it's going to be apparent that every record is not going to be the same.
I definitely make an effort to work on different styles of music: not working on too many post-rock bands, or too many heavy bands, or too many folk bands, or just whatever. I have no desire to be known as somebody that just works on a single style of music and would rather avoid it, actually.
Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day always says we were influences on him, because he does melodic but distorted, like what we were doing. The Ramones were doing it. We were doing it. The Buzzcocks, all those bands.
Music, even if I ended up doing something different or do end up doing something different in the long run, it's just something that is life blood. If I'm not participating in some way, I feel like I'm wasting my time.
I think everyone's trying to come up together and bring up other bands along the way, and we've always been really blessed to have bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden take us under their wing and say nice things about us.
The internet did not exist when I started out, the fact that bands can build a website and get all their information out there is really helpful. If you really love to play, I would say to keep doing it, because it's what you love and what you have to do.
It's important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
I really wanted to get out of that cycle in our family where somebody's taking revenge on somebody for some slight that happened thirty years ago, and the only way to assert one's existence is by climbing over the body of an unfortunate sibling, or with a fellow family member, and you end up even unconsciously rejoicing in the other person's unhappiness and being like, I am happy because I can see how unhappy these other people are.
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