Quote

Most records, you build from the drums and bass up. This one, we started with the vocals in Nashville and recorded them live with just the guitars and tried to make that complete and lovely-sounding without any adornment at all. I really wanted to get something with the vocal that I've never gotten before Armchair Apocrypha.

Andrew Bird

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Andrew Bird
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: July 11
Fiddler
Film Editor
Guitarist
Jazz Musician
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Chicago
Illinois
Andrew Wegman Bird
Andrew W. Bird
Without
Complete
Sounding
Something
Guitar
Nashville
Tried
Drums
Really
Build
Recorded
Armchair
Make
Records
Vocal
Armchairs
Never
Started
Bass
Adornment
Wanted
Gotten
Vocals
Live
Lovely
Guitars

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I'm into lately being a little less precious about writing and being like, Okay, what if I just locked myself in my room, pretend that there's someone outside with a gun that's saying, 'Don't come out until you write something.'
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I've literally opened it up to suggestions and it's totally chaotic and kind of a bad idea. You don't need the actual feedback to get a sense. When you're showing a song for the first time, people can feel that newness.
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I can't relate to the process of just disappearing and writing a record, all at the same time, followed by the sort of drudgery of going out on tour and trying to recreate the record, playing the same 12 songs every night.
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The weirdest time is when I'm having to explain myself all day to journalists, and then I don't perform, so there's no release, just a lot of self-consciousness. Then what do you do with that at the end of the day? How do you release your brain from talking about yourself all day?
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All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.
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Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.
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Just don't let the human factor fail to be a factor at all
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If you take a little time, let's say three weeks off, after recording a song, and you listen to it every other day, you're just going to know eventually.
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