Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
If you wait four or five years between records, it better be a masterpiece, you know? And if you keep putting them out, you're saying, 'Hey, here's 10 more songs'.
Craig Finn
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Craig Finn
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: August 22
Musician
Singer
Boston
Massachusetts
Five
Hey
Song
Putting
Wait
Keep
Songs
Better
Records
Years
Saying
Waiting
Four
Masterpiece
More quotes by Craig Finn
My style of lyric-writing is very specific and has a lot of details, and I think people react most to that.
Craig Finn
I'm not only a songwriter but I'm a massive music fan and I love going to shows. It's different than reading a book.
Craig Finn
The critics and hardcore music fans, those are the people you have to get to first, so we're really happy about it.
Craig Finn
I think you want to write a song that's like the songs you are into.
Craig Finn
I really like narrative songs, but I wonder if that's a thing for some people. Once they've heard the story, do they really need to hear the story again?
Craig Finn
It's really easy, in a band, to overstate - you feel like everything you do is different than the past. I think this is just another Hold Steady record, but at the same time, there is some evolution. Like, How can we make this chorus bigger? What do we want this to sound like?
Craig Finn
I guess the drinking and the drugs are interesting to me because the way we use them and our society uses them, we kind of manufacture highs and lows.
Craig Finn
Ironically, when I was playing in my first band, I would deliberately not write down any lyrics. I have a really good memory and I would just keep them in my head.
Craig Finn
Some people will totally get restless, since you can make demos pretty easy. It's not unreasonable for someone to say, All right, can you just record this and go home and work on it?
Craig Finn
I made a decision at some point to live a nontraditional life. I've become like, the opposite of a consumer. I just want freedom. I don't want stuff. I don't want clutter. I just want to be able to move freely. I want to be good to the people I love. But I don't want stuff. I just want, you know, love and big ideas.
Craig Finn
I really want to write a novel. A few years ago I went so far as to do the cliché thing and rent this house in upstate [New York]. I still have the story, but I got 15,000, 20,000 words in and it was like, This is falling apart. I can't figure out.
Craig Finn
I think having a coach or an editor or whatever the novelist's producer is could help. If you finish a chapter and you turn it in to him, and he or she said, That was pretty good, it might go better. Maybe that's what I'll try to find.
Craig Finn
The Catholic influence just comes from being raised Catholic, going to church every Sunday, being confirmed, going to church on holy days. So it's coming from where I am. It serves the purpose of having people who have a base or foundation where they know what's right.
Craig Finn
I think making the songs is to put strength in the community in some way.
Craig Finn
If I'm stuck, I'll sit down and read. That's a big thing.
Craig Finn
Springsteen on that record started writing less about having your wind in your hair and turning the radio up and more about being dragged down by adult things. Regular people trying to get ahead. A little less mythical and romantic, and more real. It's a really spectacular record for that reason.
Craig Finn
It's good to have some kind of California in there. It's almost always appropriate. It's appropriate on a sunny day or late at night. If you grew up on the Grateful Dead, which I certainly did, you listened to 10 million bootlegs. But you realize that American Beauty has some really tight, well-arranged songs that aren't meandering.
Craig Finn
I've tried to write songs for other people and it usually requires them singing it and then changing the phrasing. I can put a lot of words in a song, and one of the reasons is, I'm not that good of a singer, so I don't hold a lot of notes.
Craig Finn
You can't get every girl you get the ones you love the best.
Craig Finn
I'm not a horror movie guy, but I think the guy that did Saw, or maybe House or something, he was saying you love that age as a storyteller because a nineteen-year-old is still dumb enough to make really bad decisions, but he's allowed to be out on his own.
Craig Finn