A Quote by Paul Banks
I would have issues with directions songs were taking, but I never heard one of Carlos' [Dangler] basslines and said, "I don't like that, do something else." The same goes for the beat and the guitars. I think that's why we were able to make four albums together.
Related Quotes
In '88, '89, '90, '91... When I was making these albums, it would be four or five songs that didn't have any curse words, that were about social issues in the community.
I heard it all the time, but I never looked at it that way. People that said I was too small were the ones that helped my career out. They were the ones that said I would never make it, and they're the ones that made me fight that much harder.
We were never a band that did 96 takes of the same thing. I had heard of groups that were into that kind of excess around that time. They'd work on the same track for three or four days and then work on it some more, but that's clearly not the way to record an album. If the track isn't happening and it creates some sort of psychological barrier, even after an hour or two, then you should stop and do something else. Go out: go to the pub, or a restaurant or something. Or play another song.
I want to make myself and the crowd happy by way of something different, and that makes things difficult. I'm never playing something that hasn't been released or no one has ever heard before because I care to deliver them what they were hoping to see from me. But also I play four or five songs that will definitely surprise them.
When I was a swimmer and I would lose a heat in something I was doing whether it backstroke or breaststroke, were two of my most strongest strokes, I would look at how whoever it was that won and beat me and think, "What did they do? What were... What were the qualities that they had that I can incorporate into my swimming to make me better?"
I grew up in the time just when cassettes were waning and CDs were growing. And so mix tapes - and not mix CDs - mix tapes were an important part of the friendship and mating rituals of New York adolescents. If you were a girl and I wanted you - to show you I like you, I would make you a 90-minute cassette wherein I would show off my tastes. I would play you a musical theater song next to a hip-hop song next to an oldie next to some pop song you maybe never heard, also subliminally telling you how much I like you with all these songs.
I was in a Broadway musical called Big Time Buck Wright.The play didn't make it but I was a success. It lasted six days but I sung four songs and there were critics, seriously, in New York who said that my part was perfect. So I can beat Joe Frazier singing.
I was over at Alison's [McGhee], I think we were playing Scrabble. I remember we were both complaining - yeah, we sound like whiners - about how hard writing is, and how we didn't have a story to work on. Alison said, 'Why don't we work on writing something together,' and I said, 'Eh, I don't know if I could work that way.' She said, 'Well, just show up here and we'll see,' and I said, 'Well, what would it be about?' She said, 'Duh, it'd be about a tall girl and a short girl.' So I agreed to come and try it for a day.
I like that kind of classic-type sound. A lot of my favorite albums were tracked live, with a four-piece band. I love the way those albums sound, but I want to make records that sound like that in the way I like to make stuff.
How many songs in your life were your favorite songs but never were singles on albums?
Where I'm fortunate and why I think I've thrived and survived, through the not having albums out every year-and-a-half, is not taking the songs lightly and trying to make sure I've got consistency.
On the question of taking credit for what goes right and blame for what goes wrong - having led the Conservative party for four years, I have never heard of this notion before.
I always liked really heavy guitar music, but didn't like the long-winded songs that went with it. And I always liked pop songs, but was driven nuts because the guitars were so wimpy sounding. So I decided to put the two together. That's how the Muffs started.
I think that for the actors, the last thing that they want is a director that's not watching, a director that goes 'Okay, it sounded good to me,' and they were doing something else or preoccupied with something else because they were worried about the light changing.
I think that many of the issues they were facing in South Africa were the same as those I was singing about. Conscription, resisting the draft, government repression - I mentioned all those things in my songs.
And I think people who sort of glibly say, 'Well, you know, they're not going to handle security, UAE is a great ally,' four and a half years ago, they were not an ally, they were working with the enemy, and if those same people are still there today that were there then, these are real serious issues.
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