Background Image

...

What Fascinates Me About Addiction And Obsessive Behavior Is That People Would Choose An Altered State Of Consciousness That's Toxic And Ostensibly Destroys Most Aspects Of Your Normal Life, Because For A Brief Moment You Feel Okay.

-Moby

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

What Fascinates Me About

Moby

...

What Fascinates Me About Addiction And Obsessive Behavior Is That People Would Choose An Altered State Of Consciousness That's Toxic And Ostensibly Destroys Most Aspects Of Your Normal Life, Because For A Brief Moment You Feel Okay.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Moby

I Think That Eminem Is Very Talented And Remarkably Bright, And I Actually Do Like A Lot Of His Music.

I Find Myself For Whatever Reason Unable To Live In The Apartment I Renovate And Have To Sell.

For Me, Love Is Very Non-academic. Love, It’s A Very Physical Thing. I Don’t Mean Physical In Terms Of - I Mean, It Can Be Sexual. But Those Moments When I’m Aware Of The Fact That I Love Someone Or Love Something, It Really Manifests Physically.

I Remember New York In The '80s As A Place With Vacant Lots That Would Eventually Give Over To Nature. Weeds Would Grow Up, Squirrels Would Move In. That Entropy Is Gone Now. It's Too Expensive To Let A Vacant Lot Go Natural.

Look Not Too Long In The Face Of The Fire, O Man! Never Dream With Thy Hand On The Helm! Turn Not Thy Back To The Compass; Accept The First Hint Of The Hitching Tiller; Believe Not The Artificial Fire, When Its Redness Makes All Things Look Ghastly. To-morrow, In The Natural Sun, The Skies Will Be Bright; Those Who Glared Like Devils In The Forking Flames, The Morn Will Show In Far Other, At Least Gentler, Relief; The Glorious, Golden, Glad Sun, The Only True Lamp—all Others But Liars!

My Goal With Everything That I Do Is To Present Things In A Way That I Would Want To See If I Was In The Audience Or Buying The Record.

I Saw People Around Me Who Were Falling Deeper And Deeper Into Alcoholism And Substance Abuse. It's Seductive Because Alcohol Is Amazing And Drugs Are Amazing, They Work So Well.

I Find London Really Exciting But There's A Lot Of Vicious Success Here. Like New York, There's A Lot Of Incredibly Successful People Who Feel Incredibly Entitled, Perhaps Justifiably, But I Don't Want To Be Around Viciously Entitled People.

Now Small Fowls Flew Screaming Over The Yet Yawning Gulf; A Sullen White Surf Beat Against Its Steep Sides; Then All Collapsed; And The Great Shroud Of The Sea Rolled On As It Rolled Five Thousand Years Ago.

For Better Or Worse, I'm Interested In Just About Everything: Every Different Type Of Music I Can Imagine. I Can Never See A Reason To Choose Just One Type Of Music At The Exclusion Of Everything Else. Different Types Of Music Are Capable Of Being Rewarding In Different Kinds Of Ways.

Every Single Day The World Seems Like It Is On The Brink Of Falling Apart. But Then I Look Outside My Window, And Things Look About The Same As They Did A Week Ago. It's Almost A Form Of Cognitive Dissonance.

The Main Thing That Excites Me And Makes Me Want To Get Out Of Bed Is The Thought Of Being Able To Go Into My Studio To Work On Music.

Never Have Public Feuds With Anyone Who's Surrounded By People Who Carry Guns.

I Taught Bible Study, And There Was Period Where I Thought All Of My Beliefs Were Right, And Everybody Who Disagreed With Me Was Wrong.

There's No Wrong Way To Meditate. And Meditation Should Never Be A Difficult Practice That Leads To Self Criticism.

I Can't Think Of Any Musician Or Producer Who Has Influenced Me More Than Brian Eno. From When He Was In Roxy Music, Producing Devo, The Talking Heads And My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.

Keep Your Weather Eye Open, And Sing Out Every Time.

I Truly Believe, As An Institution, Most Major Labels Should Just Die.

Why Can't A Democrat Get Fired Up About Protecting The Environment And Enacting Gun Control Legislation Just As Right Wing Republicans Get Fired Up About Making Sure That Children Have Access To Assault Weapons And Banning 'the Catcher In The Rye' And 'harry Potter'?

Assault Weapons

Could You Look An Animal In The Eyes And Say To It, 'my Appetite Is More Important Than Your Suffering'?

Punishing People For Listening To Music Is Exactly The Wrong Way To Protect The Music Business.

When I Tour I'm Going To Countries To Play Music For People. My Presence In A Country Is Not An Endorsement Or A Condemnation Of That Country's Policies. My Presence In A Country Is An Effort To Connect With People Through Playing Music.

There Are So Many Musicians, Friends Of Mine, Who Play Shows For Ten People A Night, Or Always Desperately Wanted A Record Contract. So Even If Every Person On The Planet Loathes Me, I Have Nothing To Complain About. My Job Is Not A Bad Job, So I Can't Complain.

I Have To Say That Being A Vegan In 1986 Or Whenever Was A Lot Different Than Being A Vegan In 2012. You'd Go To Health Foods Stores And Basically Your Choice Was Between Mung Beans And Nutritional Yeast, And That's About It.

I Like The Humility That Comes From Being Hated. Hopefully Some Humility And Compassion Comes Out Of That.

Biologically We’re All The Same. We All Get Sad, We All Get Happy, And We All Die. Anyone Who Pretends That That’s Not The Case Is Either A Sociopath Or Utterly Delusional.

Musicians, Actors, Writers - We're All Neurotic, Odd People Who've Lucked Into Accidental Careers. So I Just Don't Like Being Around Public Figures With That Sense Of Entitlement, It Just Seems Unhealthy, And It Strips So Much Potential For Them To Develop As A Human Being.

As People Continue To Do More And Buy More Over The Internet, Continue To Meet People Over The Internet, Connection Speeds Are Going To Get Faster, And The Internet Is Just Going To Become An Even More Integral Part Of People's Lives.

I Have Actually Found Myself Buying Up More And More Old Analogue Gear. I Have This Strange Obsession With Old Drum Machines.

If You Don't Want To Be Beaten, Imprisoned, Mutilated, Killed Ot Tortured, Then You Shouldn't Condone Such Behaviour Towards Anyone, Be They Human Or Not.

Actually, The Most Entitled People I've Met Are Indie Rockers And Indie Actors, Because They Really Believe Their Press.

I've Never Seen Friends; I've Never Seen Seinfeld. I've Heard People Reference These Things But I've Never Seen Them.

There Is A Lot Of Music In The World That I Love That Does Not Always Get The Appropriate Exposure.

Maybe It's A Form Of Overcompensation, But Whenever I've Toured, I've Always Needed A Huge Performance Component.

In 1992 I Was Doing One Of My First Ever Tours And I Was In Heathrow Airport And I Saw These Middle-aged Musicians Who Had Clearly Been On Tour For Decades, And They All Looked Haggard And Unhappy And Unhealthy. I Vowed To Myself That I Would Never Be That Person. Flash Forward 20 Years And I Found Myself In Heathrow Looking Haggard And Unhappy And Unhealthy. I Decided I Would Rather Spend My Time Staying Home Working On Music And Making Dinner With Friends, Instead Of Spending Six Months In A Hotel In A State Of Depressing Suspended Adolescence.

Somehow, Magically, I've Become An Electronic Musician, And I Have A Recording Studio That Looks Like The Bridge Of The Enterprise.

To Paraphrase Paul From The New Testament, He Has A Great Soliloquy About Love, Where He's Basically Saying, If I've Figured Out The Secrets Of The Universe But I Don't Have Love, Figuring Out The Secrets Of Universe Means Nothing.

I Thought That My Life Would Be Spent Working In A Bookstore, Teaching Community College, And Making Music In My Spare Time That No One Would Be Willing To Listen To.

When I Listen To Gospel Singers Pouring Their Heart Out To God, It's The Act Of Pouring Their Hearts Out That Interests Me.

When I Was A Drunk, New York Was The Greatest Place In The World. You Walk Everywhere, Everything Is Open Until Four In The Morning, And People Go To New York Looking For Debauchery.

My Uncle Is From Argentina, So I Grew Up Hearing Spanish. My Spanish Isn't Very Good, But My Pronunciation Isn't Terrible.

For Me The Two Biggest Issues Are Climate Change And Animal Welfare/animal Agriculture. And Oddly Enough Animal Agriculture Is Such A Contributor To Climate Change. According To The United Nations, 25% Of Climate Change Comes From Animal Agriculture, So Every Car, Bus, Boat, Truck, Airplane Combined Has Less Co2 And Methane Emissions Than Animal Agriculture.

I Guess The Most Emotional Part Is When I Have That Moment When I End Up Writing Something That I Really, Really Love. So Not Only Is There The Emotional Connection With The Music That's Being Created, But There's Also The Magic Of The Fact That You're Essentially Creating Something From Nothing.

A Lot Of Times Good, Pristine Recordings Prevent The Listener From Getting Emotionally Involved In The Music.

I Find The Fact That So Few People Buy Albums To Be Strangely Emancipating. There's Absolutely No Reason For 99% Of Musicians Making Albums To Think About Actually Selling Albums. So As A Musician You Can Just Make An Album For The Love Of Making Albums.

For Some Reason New York Is The Epicentre For People Who Hate Me. Maybe This Is Another Reason Why I Left New York But I Get More Hatred Directed Towards Me There Than Any Other Place.

This Isn't Like Naming Your Dog Spot.

Scotland Is One Of My Favourite Places To Perform: It's Really Something Special. Scottish Audiences Are Just So Enthusiastic; Their Approach To Dance Music Just Feels Similar To My Own Somehow.

The Solution Probably Doesn't Look Like The Problem. If We Have This Propensity To Worry, To Be Anxious, To Be Depressed, To Be Angry - Focusing On The Worry, Anxiety, Depression, And Anger? Probably Not Gonna Be The Solution.

I Feel Like People Might Be Slightly Less Inclined To Hate Me As Much As They Did In The Past, And I Think Part Of That Is Selling Fewer Records.

But On A Utilitarian Level, I Realize That To Try To Accomplish The Greatest Good For The Greatest Number Of People, Sometimes We Have To Become Salesmen For What We Believe, And Part Of Being A Salesman Is Being Effective.

I Love Going On Tour And Playing Music For People.

I Think The Ideal Job In That Alternative Universe Would Be To Lead Whitewater Rafting Trips Through The Grand Canyon. So Maybe I'd Be A Guy Leading Whitewater Rafting Trips At The Grand Canyon. Or Maybe A Professional Skydiver.

I'm Offended By The Is-ought Fallacy, Which Has Been Used To Justify Slavery, Women Not Being Allowed To Vote, Children Working In Factories.

You Could Almost Say That Throughout Human History There Are People Who Can Either Foresee Consequences Or Who Are Capable Of Looking For Information And Predicting The Consequences Will Happen, But The Vast Majority Of People Won't Respond To Climate Change Until Their City Is Underwater, Food Supply Is Disrupted Or Everyone Around Them Is Dying Of Zoonotic Disease. It's Almost Like Someone Dealing With An Addiction, Like You Hope That The Person Can Overcome The Addiction Before The Addiction Kills Them.

All Human Belief Systems Are Inherently Flawed.

I'm Pretty Much A Realist. There's A Certain Age You Get To When You're Not Really Going To Be Shown Anymore.

I'm Like A Monk With A Taste For Hookers.

I Met Elton John At An Interview Dinner, And We Just Sort Of Became Friends. He's Got Such A Wicked Sense Of Humor.

The Good Thing About Not Being Drop-dead Gorgeous Is That As Time Passes, I Don't Have Much To Worry About. I Have Friends Who Are Actors And Every Day They Look In The Mirror With Trepidation.

One Time I Was Doing An Interview For A Gay Magazine And Halfway Through The Journalist Found Out I Wasn't Gay. He Said, 'sorry, I Can't Continue The Interview.' Because They Only Had Gay Public Figures In Their Magazine. I Felt So Crestfallen. I Wanted To Tell Him: But I Play Fundraisers For Gay Marriage! I'd Rather My Kids Were Gay Than Straight!'

I'd Just Rather Have A Really Sharp, Interesting, Smart Gay Son Than Some Big Dumb Hetero Meathead.

Factory-farm Lobbyists Are So Powerful And So Well Funded And They Do Everything In Their Power To Hide The Truth About Farming. They Keep The Farms And Slaughterhouses In Places That Most People Never Visit; They Execute Huge Marketing Campaigns In An Effort To Make Animal Production Look Like A Happy, Nice, Benign Institution.

Most Artists, You Know, You Spend Their Entire Lives Learning How To Play Music And Write Songs, And They Don't Really Know How The Music Business Works.

Being A Vegan Is Pretty Easy These Days, As Almost Every Town And City Has Health Food Stores And Vegetarian-friendly Restaurants.

There Might Be A Lot Of Difference Between Republicans And Democrats On Key Social Issues Like Women's Rights And Health Care. But When It Comes To Taking Corporate Cash, They're Pretty Much The Same Beast.

Over Time, I Started Becoming More And More Aware Of The Vastness And Complexity Of The Universe, Which Led Me Away From Any Sort Of Conventional Christianity.

Have I Dated A Supermodel? Of Course Not. I'd Look Ridiculous.

The Term 'renaissance Man' Is Always Bandied About. I Don't Think That Applies To Me. You Think About Leonardo Da Vinci, And He Was A Painter And A Physicist And An Architect, And That Is A True Renaissance Man.

When I Was Growing Up, All I Wanted To Do Was Fit In, But If You're Perpetually An Outsider, It Gives You A Perspective That Might Have A Little More Objectivity Than People Who Really Feel Connected To Their Social Environment In Which They Grow Up.

I Spent So Much Of My Life Reading About Spirituality And Reading About Neuroscience And Trying Different Meditation Practices. It's A Really Big Part Of My Life. But It's Sometimes Hard To Talk About. There Are So Many People In The World Who Don't Live In Southern California And Don't Spend Their Time Meditating.

I Think There Are Two Types Of Photographers, Those Who Want To Document The World And Those Who Want To Create Their Own World. I Am More Interested In Documenting The World And Presenting It To People With The Question Attached, 'does This Make Any Sense To You?'

As A New Yorker You Can't Help But Be Proud Of The Fact That So Much Music And Culture Started Here. Punk Rock, Jazz, Hip-hop And House Music Started Here, George Gershwin Debuted 'rhapsody In Blue' Here; The Velvet Underground Are From New York.

I've Dated Some Very Enthusiastic, Attractive People And Some Very Unenthusiastic, Less Attractive People. I See No Correlation. But Female Friends Of Mine Who Have Dated Male Public Figures Have Found That Is The Case. They Say Male Models Are Terrible In Bed, Because They Feel Like Just Showing Up Is All The Effort They Need To Make.

A Lot Of People Have Realized That A Good Spiritual Practice And A Good Meditation Practice Have Real Benefit. It’s Not Just Something Nice To Do To Make The Universe Happy.

I'm Definitely A Fan Of Public Humiliation.

I Love It When Celebrities Fall Apart, You Want Them To Fall Apart Like Charlie Sheen.

I Truly Don't Judge Other People's Actions. But I Think That Factory Farming Is An Abomination.

I Can Spend Years Studying And Being In Therapy And Having A Very Analytic Spiritual Meditation Practice, But Without The Emotional Component, Without The Softening That Comes With Love And Vulnerability, Everything Else I Do Is Really Just Surface.

Meditation Practice

When I Saw Music As A Means To An End - More Fame, More Money, Dating Celebrities - That's When Things Have Gone Terribly Wrong. Now My Life Is Focused On Just Trying To Keep Making Music. Because When It's Really Good, It's Just The Most Remarkable Feeling On The Planet.

One Of The Reasons Why Fundamentalists Are So Aggressive In Trying To Promote Fundamentalism Is Because Deep Down They Know It's Arbitrary. If You're Comfortable With Your Belief You Don't Need To Convince Other People To Agree With You.

I'd Much Rather Go Out And Have Music Randomly Presented To Me By Different Djs Than Stay Home And Discover It On My Own.

You Have Climate Change And Antibiotic Resistance Which Are Two Of The Biggest Horses Of The Apocalypse, And They're Basically Breathing On Our Necks, And There's No Political Will Or Effort Being Expended To Deal With Them.

Whereas For Me, Touring Tends To Be A Very Strange And Isolating Experience.

There Are A Lot Of Public Figures Who, Before They Take A Stand On A Issue, They Talk About It With Their Publicist And They Figure Out How It's Going To Affect Record Sales. Life Is Really Too Short To Worry About That Sort Of Thing.

Sit Down, Close Your Eyes, And Think About Dogs For Ten Minutes. On A Very Clear, Physiological, And Neurochemical Level, Your Body Is Changed By These Really Positive Thoughts.

In Some Of The Greatest Recordings Ever Made, The Performance Is A Part Of The Recording. Dylan's 'rainy Day Women No. 12 And 35' Is All About The Esthetic Of That Performance. You Can Hear The Room.

The Progressive Movement Needs More Crazy And Amoral/immoral Right-wing Politicians And Pundits Like Tom Delay And Newt Gingrich And Ann Coulter And Sean Hannity.

I Guess...on One Hand, I Spent Way Too Much Time Watching Science Fiction And Reading Science Fiction When I Was Growing Up. But A Part Of It Is I Also Never Felt Much Of A Connection To The World In Which I Lived While I Was Growing Up, And So, Oddly Enough, I Think I Felt A Lot More Connected To The Worlds That I Read About In Science Fiction.

I Love Thich Nhat Hahn. One Of My Favorite Quotes Of His (and I’m Paraphrasing), He’s Talking About Cultivating Happiness, And He Was Saying, At The Very Least, Just Be Happy You’re Not At The Dentist Right Now. He Was Talking To Someone Who Was Having A Really Hard Time Finding Joy.

Who Wakes Up When They're Worth £120million And Says, 'i'm Unhappy Today But If Only I Had An Extra £2million!'

It's Much Easier To Have A Diversified Career As An Electronic Musician Than It Is As A Drummer. Nothing Against Drummers. If You're A Drummer, You Just Wait Around For People To Ask You To Play Drums. But If You Have Your Own Studio And Can Make Music, You Have The Ability To Approach Music A Lot Differently.

Better A Loving Single-parent Family Than A 'conventional' Family Where The Parents Hate Each Other And The Father Is A Demagogue.

When I Was In My Twenties, I Thought I Was Bulletproof.

I Believe That The Role Of Limited Government Should Be Looking After The Needs Of Veterans, The Elderly, Children And Those Institutions That Improve The Quality Of Life For Struggling Families - I Don't Believe That Government Should Bend To Serve The Needs Of Subsidized Multi-national Corporations And Entitled Billionaires.

The Way I Work On Music Is That I Go Into My Studio, And I Start Playing Music, And I See What Happens, And... I Never Think About It.

I Like Singing, But It's Certainly Not My Strong Point.

I Wasn't Raised Catholic; I Just Really Like The Image Of A Neutral And Benign Mary Floating Around Somewhere, Being Nice To People.

Nasa Is An Utterly Fascinating Place, And The Fact That The Buildings Look So Anonymous Almost Make It More Fascinating. You Walk By A Generic Office-park-looking Building, And You Have No Idea What's Going On Inside.

I Realized The Universe Is 15 Billion Years Old And Unspeakably Complicated. I Still Love The Teachings Of Christ, But I Also Believe That The Human Condition Prevents Us From Having Any True Objective Knowledge And Understanding Of The Universe.

There Are Certain Songs That If People Come Up To Me And Tell Me How Much That Song Meant To Them, I Think, You Should Have Better Taste, Then, Because I Don't Really Like That Song.

Intellectually, Human Beings And Animals May Be Different, But It's Pretty Obvious That Animals Have A Rich Emotional Life And That They Feel Joy And Pain. It's Easy To Forget The Connection Between A Hamburger And The Cow It Came From. But I Forced Myself To Acknowledge The Fact That Every Time I Ate A Hamburger, A Cow Had Ceased To Breathe

I've Had My Charlie Sheen Moments, It Was Usually Just At The Mars Bar On The Corner Of First Avenue With Me And A Few Homeless Guys.

I'm Straight, But I Love Going To House Music Clubs And Flirting With Women And Gay Men.

Some Of The Songs I've Made, I'm Really Disappointed In How I Mixed Them.

I Feel Like Once The Song Is Done, You Put It Out There And If People Want To Do Bizarre Remixes, If People Want To Make Strange Videos, Great. You Know, Like Chaos Theory Applied To The Music Business.

When Playing Big Festivals, I Tend To Play Big, Over The Top Techno Tracks, Like Hands In The Air Songs That Make Sense Being Played In Front Of 30,000 People. I Steer Away From Subtlety In The Interests Of Big Bombastic Dance Music.

I Wanted To Have A Title That Wasn't In English So That Someone In France, For Instance, Could Ask For 'dix-huit' Or The Someone In Japan Could Ask For 'juhachi.'

I Walk Out My Front Door In New York And I'm Out On The Street And There Are People Everywhere. L.a. Is So Much More Spread Out, So It's Really Easy In L.a. To Have A Little More Isolation And To Just Not See As Many People.

I'd Rather Be Around Broken People Who Have A Degree Of Humility, And Just Get On With Their Work.

I Feel Like Someone Who's Meditating Could Possibly Benefit Their Meditation Practice And Their Well-being Just By Sitting Down And Thinking About Things That They Love For Ten Minutes.

There's Nothing In The Actual Bible That Limits A Christian In Their Appreciation Of Or Interest In Science. Anti-science Is Purely A Function Of Ignorant Fundamentalism.

I'd Much Rather Go To A Banksy Art Show Than A Moby Art Show. My Art Is Painfully Naive.

Luckily Almost No One Buys Music Anymore, So Selling Music Doesn't Really Affect Any Of My Professional Decisions.

One Of The Central Flaws In The State Of Contemporary Music Is That The Major Record Companies Have Failed To Incorporate That Simple Fact Into Their Business Plans. They've Come Into An Industry That's Based On Idiosyncratic Artists And Tried To Erase Every Idiosyncratic Aspect Out Of It.

I Went To Columbia University Because They Were Doing A Study On People Who Suffered From Panic Attacks, And Because I Suffered From Panic Attacks My Whole Life, I Decided To Be A Part Of It. They Had This Questionnaire Where They Asked, How Many Units Of Alcohol Do You Have In A Month? The Top Answer Was 40 Or More, And I Got Really Scared Because I Was Having On Average 60 Or 70 Drinks A Week. And I Realized That That Was A Bad Sign.

When You Look At The Consequences Of Climate Change, At Rainforest Deforestation, At Antibiotic Resistance, These Are Not Necessarily Political Issues, But Rather Issues That Have The Ability To Threaten Our Species.

When Britney Shaves Off All Her Hair And Beats Paparazzi With Umbrellas - That's What Celebrities Are Supposed To Do. They're Not Supposed To Be Reasonable, Middle-aged Guys Drinking Organic Tea Talking About Semiotics.

I Won't Complain About Touring, Because I Really Do Believe That A Public-figure Musician Complaining About Being A Public-figure Musician Is Just Absurd. Like, 'boo Hoo Hoo! I Have To Stand On Stage And People Pay Attention To Me!'

The People Who Get More Fame, Who Get More Money, More Often Than Not They Are Miserable, Insecure And On Anti-depressants. It's Strange That Everyone Keeps Buying Into This Idea That More Success Is Good, That More Fame Is Good, That More Money Is Good. Yet, We Look At The People Who Have More Success, More Fame, More Money And They're Miserable.

To Quote Homer Simpson, Alcohol Is The Cause And Solution To All Of Life's Problems. I Don't Think There's Anything Wrong With Drinking And Drug Use, If People Can Do It And Not Hurt Themselves. But It Got To The Point Where I Was Really Hurting Myself.

For My Most Of My Career I've Been A Falling-down Drunk. Most Of My Interviews Were Done Hungover, And For A While It Was Great.

People Who Meditate And Have A Good Spiritual Practice, Their Immune Systems Are Stronger. Generally, They Are Happier And Healthier.

My Goal Is To Make One-not A Hodgepodge, But Just The Sort Of Record That I Would Want To Listen To.

I Was Raised With This Idea That We're Supposed To Be Tolerant Of Other People's Opinions, But Then What Happens If Other People's Opinions Are Racist And Hateful And Wrong?

The Aggressive, Energised, Political, Or Even Politicised, Culturally Aware Music Hasn't Really Existed [recently].

I Love To Be Busy. I'm Envious Of People Who Are Able To Take Their Spare Time And Relax. All I Like To Do Is Work. Perhaps It's Lingering Calvinist Guilt?

Sometimes I Love The Marriage Of Art And Commerce; I Love Donna Summer; I Like The Rolling Stones.

When I Was Growing Up I Was An Atheist, Then An Agnostic, And Then I Had A Good Eight Or Ten Years Of Being Quite A Serious Christian.

People Assume That Somehow Fame And Wealth Will Keep Mortality At Bay.

For Years, My Mom Dated A Man Who Was Really Active In The Baptist Church In The Town Next To The Town I Grew Up In, And So He Used To Drag Me To These Baptist Church Services That Lasted Forever. I Remember That I Didn't Like The Church Services, But I Really Liked The Music.

A Lot Of My Friends Who Grew Up In Manhattan Have A Strange Phobia About Brooklyn. It's Big And Scary And They Get Lost.

What I Love About Making Albums In The 21st Century Is That So Few People Buy Albums! I Can Make An Album Without Any Commercial Concerns Whatsoever.

If I Was A Sex Symbol, I Would Be Getting Laid A Lot More Than I Am Now.

When I Was Growing Up, Albums Were My Closest Friends, As Sad As That May Sound - Joy Division's 'closer,' Or Echo And The Bunnymen's 'heaven Up Here'... I Had A More Intimate Relationship With Those Records Than I Did With Most Of The People In My Life.

Intimate Relationships

Because I've Been That Drunk Person In The Club So Many Thousands Of Times, When I'm In An Environment Where People Are Drunk Or On Drugs, I Certainly Don't Judge Them. Because It's Almost A Given That For Much Of My Life I've Been Way More Messed Up Than Them.

If We Base Our Belief Systems On The Humble Assumption That The Complexities Of The World Are Ontologically Beyond Our Understanding, Then Maybe Our Belief Systems Will Make More Sense And End Up Causing Less Suffering.

I Made A Record In 1996 Called 'animal Rights' That Was A Very Difficult, Very Dark Punk-rock Record. Of All The Records I've Made, It's My Favorite One. It's Also The One That Got The Worst Reviews And Sold The Worst.

Oftentimes Things That Seem Really Difficult And Traumatic In The Short Term Seem A Lot Less Difficult And Traumatic In The Long Term.

In 1991 I Did An Interview Wherein I Described Myself As A 'teetotal Christian,' Which Was An Exaggeration, Although I Do Like Tea And Christ.

I Just Have To Remind Myself That My Daily Quotidie In Life Has Almost Nothing To Do With Any Aspect Of My Professional Life As A Public Figure.

Professional Life

But At The Same Time, I Don't Let Myself Regret Things To The Point That I'm Paralyzed.

For His Sake I'm Sorry That Robert Johnson Sold His Soul To The Devil, But For Our Sake And The Sake Of Music I'm Glad He Did.

If I Were To Be Really Petulant, I Would Say New York Is The One Doing The Betraying. Because The New York I Fell In Love With Doesn't Really Exist Anymore.

La Is Such A Crumbling Mess Of A City. Basically In All My Years Of Travelling, I Haven't Found Another City In The Western World That Interest Me As Much As Los Angeles - Which Might Sound Like Heresy, But Most Cities, History Has Already Happened And The People Living There Are Sort Of Living On The Bones Of The Thousand Years Of History That's Already Happened There. Whereas La Is Always Reinventing Itself.

I've Experienced Tons Of Failure. I've Been Making Music For 30 Years, And I'd Say Failure And Success Have Happened In Equal Measure.

Success And Failure

There Are Some Public Figures Who Are Very Private And Almost Hide Behind Their Work. I Try To Be As Open As Possible.

What Makes Me Vulnerable Is Any Genuine Expression Of Emotion In The Presence Of Another Person. It Makes Me Vulnerable And My Inclination Is, Of Course, Immediately To Back Away From Anything That Makes Me Vulnerable.

The Average Life Expectancy Of A Celebrity Is 20 Years Less Than Someone Working In A Coal Mine.

It Seems So Antithetical To The Teachings Of Christ To Proclaim Your Faith In Public. I Mean, Of Course You're Not Supposed To Hide Your Light Under A Bushel.

Can't Do Any Work With A Rock Star; You Have To Go Through Their Lawyers And Their Agents And Their Managers And You Have To Book Them Hotel Rooms. When You Work With Your Friends, You Just Call Them Up And They Come Over And You Record And Then You Go Out To See A Movie.

For Me, New York Still Ranks As The Most Beautiful And The Most Interesting City In The World. It Is Also The Most Varied In Terms Of The Things It Has To Offer.

The Moment Somebody Becomes Famous, 15 Years Gets Knocked Off Their Life. They're Gonna Get Divorced A Few Times, They're Gonna Be Addicted To Things, They're Gonna Be In Therapy.

I Just Have To Remind Myself That My Daily Quotidie In Life Has Almost Nothing To Do With Any Aspect Of My Professional Life As A Public Figure. And I Think A Lot Of People Get To That Point - Specifically, Sort Of Getting Comfortable Looking Out For Yourself And Taking Care Of Yourself And Defining Yourself Based On Healthier Criteria, And Not Criteria That's Established By Complete Strangers That You've Never Met.

If Someone Is Cynical And Doesn't Vote And Ends Up With A Crummy Job In A Crummy Country With A Decimated Environment, They Only Have Themselves To Blame.

Shaving Your Head Is Acceptable. It's When You Start Wearing Toupees And Brushing Your Hair Over That Things Go Wrong.

We Live In This Culture Where There Are So Many Things That Want Us To Pretend That We’re Not Truly Human. That We Can Be Exempt From The Human Condition, Either Through Intelligence Or Accomplishment Or Success Or Humor. Bu Biologically We’re All The Same. We All Get Sad, We All Get Happy, And We All Die. Anyone Who Pretends That That’s Not The Case Is Either A Sociopath Or Utterly Delusional.

No One Drives In Manhattan - In Fact, Many Of The Folks Who Live In Manhattan Don't Even Have Driving Licenses!

I Don't Want To Get Too Nuanced, But We Have The Electoral College In The United States And That Means We Don't Have Direct Democracy.

Growing Up In Connecticut, All The Colonial Houses Looked Alike. In Los Angeles, The Diversity Is So Extreme, It's Baffling.

'arbitrary' And 'odd' Are The Words Which Best Describe The Pattern Of My Career. I'm Perpetually Baffled By The Whole Thing.

It’s Perfectly Natural For Me To Sit Down And Talk About Meditating And Spiritual Practice With My Friends. But Then I Realize, How Would It Sound To A Drunk Cynical Guy In London?

A Vegan Who Beats His Wife Is Far Further Down The Ethical Ladder Than A Meat Eater Who's Kind To His Children.

Basically We Should Stop Doing Those Things That Are Destructive To The Environment, Other Creatures, And Ourselves And Figure Out New Ways Of Existing.

How Do I Transform Pain. I Guess The Number One Way In Which I Do That Is By Working On Music, But Also It Can Be Anything From Just Talking About It With Other People Or Doing Kickboxing Or Meditating Or Running Around With Dogs. Or Just Simply Trying To Sit With It And Be Mindful And Be Aware Of It.

I'm Sure Most People Have This Experience: When You're Young You Drink, You Do Drugs, You Stay Up Late, And There Are No Consequences.

I Wish I Could Sing. I Don't Technically Have A Terrible Voice, But It's Certainly Not As Good As Most Of My Friends. Whenever I Hear Myself On A Record, It Just Reminds Me I'm Not A Very Good Singer.

Up Until I Started Working With Him, I Had Thought That Music Was A Nice Thing That I Enjoyed And Liked Making, But It Wasn’t A Serious Healing Modality. What Dr. Sacks Has Proven Is That Music Is Actually A Quantifiable, Profound Healing Modality.

When I Say, 'i Love Christ And Love The Teachings Of Christ,' I Mean That In The Most Simple And Naive Way. I'm Not Saying I'm Right.

Britney [spears]'s Actually Kind Of Like A Broken-down Shell Of A Human Being, That's What Makes Her So Endearing And Compelling.

There Is A Long And Interesting Tradition Of Really Marginal Left-field Music That Becomes Commercially Successful. And I Will, For A Brief Minute, Fit Into That Tradition.

There Was A Time When I Was Way Too Reliant Upon Other People's Opinions And Perspective Of Me. And I Guess Over Time Came To See How Unhealthy That Was. I Mean It's Almost Like A Sign Of Mental Illness To Base Your Self-worth On The Opinions Of Complete Strangers.

The Demise Of The Monolithic Record Industry Has Been, For A Lot Of People, Really Liberating And Emancipating.

I Remind Myself That The Universe Is 15 Billion Years Old, And I'm Only 46 Years Old, So My Perspective Is Sort Of Limited And Fear-based And Skewed. So I Sort Of Turn Things Over To Whatever You Want To Call It - Whether It's God, Or The Universe Or The Spirit Of The Universe - And I Just Sort Of Turn Things Over To God And Hope That This Spirit That Has Been Around For 15 Billion Years Will Have A Better Understanding Of How Things Should Be Than I Do.

I'm Gonna Have To Start Walking Down The Street And Start Hitting People In The Head!

Everyone Feels Awkward, Everyone Feels Uncomfortable, Everyone Gets Older, Everyone Gets Lonely, Everyone Gets Sick, Everyone Eventually Dies.

I Always Feel Kind Of Absurd And Presumptuous Presenting A Speech.

A Great Song Is A Great Song, Whether It's On Vinyl Or Cd Or Cassette Or Reel To Reel Or Mp3. Then Again, That Might Be An Overly Optimistic View, But I Do Think That Great Music Will Transcend The Medium In Which It Is Delivered.

I Need An Audience Way More Than An Audience Needs Me.

In The Course Of My Life, I've Made Some Happy Songs But It's The More Sort Of Like Pathos-laden, Emotional, Melancholic Music That Either I Make Or That Other People Make That Really Resonates With Me.

It's A Very Strange Phenomenon Being Hated By People You've Never Met. Some Journalists Just Seem To Hate Me And Everything I Do, And It's Disconcerting Because I've Never Met This Person.

There's A Fairly Extensive Network Of Musicians On Tour Who Are All Trying To Stay Sober, And We Generally Reach Out To Each Other And Offer Support When And Where We Can.

People Don't Truly Respond To Something Until They See The Direct Consequences.

When Famous People Are Nice To Me, It Feels Good, So I'm Happy To Hang Out With Them. It's Better Than Being At Home, Depressed, Reading 'the Hobbit.'

Over Time, I Started Becoming More Aware Of The Vastness And Complexity Of The Universe, Which Led Me Away From Any Sort Of Conventional Christianity. I Still Love The Teachings Of Christ, But I Also Believe That The Human Condition Prevents Us From Having Any True Objective Knowledge Of The Universe. All Human Belief Systems Are Inherently Flawed. If I Had To Label Myself Now, I'd Call Myself A Taoist-christian-agnostic Quantum Mechanic. Also, There's Nothing In The Actual Bible That Limits A Christian In Their Interest In Science. Anti-science Is A Function Of Ignorant Fundamentalism.

My Mother And I Were On Welfare And Food Stamps Until I Was 18, So I've Always Had This Ethos Of, Like, 'try And Make A Little Bit Of Money Now Because You Don't Know What's Going To Happen Tomorrow.'

It Takes A Unique Woman To See Me As Any Sort Of Catch.

Sacha Baron Cohen Is One Of My Heroes.

I Don't Have Children, But I Imagine If Parents Are Really Pushed On The Subject, They Probably Have Favorite Children.

If You Look At The History Of Demagoguery And Fascism, It Always Happens When There Are Two Things. It Requires A Gentle Populace To Allow It To Happen, Whether Through Laziness, Ignorance Or Ineptitude, But It Also Requires A Very Angry, Dissatisfied Section Of The Populace Who Want Egregiously Simple Answers To Very Complicated Problems.

I Remember I Went To Berlin Right After The Wall Came Down. I First Went To East Berlin, And All The Buildings Were Old And Falling Down, And Now When You Go Back To Berlin, You Know You're In The East Because All The Buildings Are Brand New And Very Tall.

Lord, I Want To Be Up In My Heart.

You Could Spend Every Waking Moment Online And Still Only Experience One-trillionth Of What's Out There. I Find That A Little Overwhelming.

Call Me A Nerd If You Like, But I Do Find It Hard To Leave Home Without My Laptop And A Good Book.

By Being Vulnerable, Either With Yourself Or In The Presence Of Another Person, That’s Where All Growth And Ultimate Well-being Comes From.

I Love The Idea Of Making Records That People Can Use, Records That Have A Sense Of Utility.

I've Dated Attractive People And I Don't Find A Correlation Between Amorous Enthusiasm And Beauty And Public Figure Status.

David Lynch Is My Friend, And I Love His Movies And His Art And His Music. Few Things Make Me Happier Than Working With Him.

The Only Sort Of Descriptive Adjective Or Catch Phrase For My Music Would Be 'eclectic.'

In The Long, Nonillustrious History Of White People Pilfering African American Culture, Have I Just Perpetrated That? I'm Motivated By A Love For The Music And By A Love Of The Performances, And I Really Hope I Haven't Done Anything Bad.

Trending Author

Alexander McQueen

Lakhdar Brahimi

Krist Novoselic

Category