Quote

I just pay attention to what's in my head. That's my number-one rule.

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
Rule
Number
Pay
Numbers
Head
Attention

More quotes by Andrew Bird

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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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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.
Andrew Bird
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I think life is a wondrous thing. I'm happy to try pretty hard.
Andrew Bird
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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.
Andrew Bird
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I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.
Andrew Bird
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I still play solo shows. And some of those shows are still some of the best, most gratifying shows.
Andrew Bird
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There's always a tension between wanting to write a really concise, instant gratification type song that gets under your skin the first time you hear it, and wanting to really stretch out. I think it's a healthy tension.
Andrew Bird
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I think I'm still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.
Andrew Bird
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I've always found that whatever you say about indie rock, it is the most inclusive genre or title for anything. It doesn't pin you down too much, like other labels would. It's just newer, it has less baggage.
Andrew Bird
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I think any songwriter or record, no matter how good it is, can become tedious if it's the same person's point of view. After four tracks, you start to get worn down no matter how good it is. It can be relentlessly good, but it's still going to wear you out.
Andrew Bird
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Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.
Andrew Bird
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Music as a social conduit has always been important to me.
Andrew Bird
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A day off after a show with no agenda in a foreign city is about the most fertile creative situation I can imagine. Just walking with nothing to do, killing time and hearing the sights and sounds of an unfamiliar place.
Andrew Bird
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I write a lot more when I'm happy, because you're hopeful, you're motivated.
Andrew Bird
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Every time I make a record, it's kind of like scarification or something. You work 15 hours until you're stupid. You're just kind of all jittery.
Andrew Bird
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The instrumental record is a bit subtler. It's the kind of stuff on sound check, when I first pick up my violin and start to play, the kind of melodies that just pour out of me. Some of them sound very classical. Some of them sound experimental, polyrhythmic loops that I make.
Andrew Bird
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Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.
Andrew Bird
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The real drag is trying to fly from country to country, day of show, with all your gear. You get hassled all the time. It's hard trying to keep it together.
Andrew Bird
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Some of your best songs come from a desperate attempt to escape, so sitting in an airport for hours I can just start pulling out little fragments of songs from my head. A lot of times a melody will just occur to me and be my companion for a couple of months.
Andrew Bird
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I also don't believe that everything happens for a reason, which is in a similar category of world-views.
Andrew Bird