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I went to art school and never thought I'd be a musician, but then punk rock came along in the late 70s and kind of ruined my life. So I quit art school to get involved in music and I've been doing it ever since.

Michael Gira

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Michael Gira
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: February 19
Composer
Guitarist
Musician
Poet
Record Producer
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
LA
California
Michael Rolfe Gira
School
Late
Music
Along
Ruined
Ever
Involved
Punk
Kind
Went
Quit
Never
Since
Quitting
Life
Came
Musician
Art
Rock
Thought
Rocks

More quotes by Michael Gira

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Many of the songs were written as a way of paying tribute to specific people, but in the end the songs took on a life of their own and I didn't worry about accuracy or biographical truth, so it's not a problem.
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Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments.
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The goal is ecstasy, but I don't want to make some sort of saccharine pop music. I want to make something that's completely uncompromising: the best possible music ever made.
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I used to routinely break my ribs doing stupid things onstage, but I have a healthy fear of breaking my bones now.
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At a certain age, children are total Id - they're anything but beautiful little flowers. That always interests me. The place where the ego and the superego start, and where guilt and socialization and morality takes place, the true root of it.
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I really wanted to get to the animal core of rock music and eliminate anything that wasn't necessary.
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As far as playing playing festivals and everything, I feel like that's what I was born to do. I'm an entertainer, hopefully in the best sense.
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I don't throw my body down on the stage at all anymore because I'm sure I'd snap like a twig.
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You make your work and you can't ask for approval when you're doing it. Otherwise, it's going to be untruthful in some way.
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I'm a producer in the old-school way - not just some slacker working on Pro Tools.
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Nina Simone was an entertainer. Bob Dylan was an entertainer. Anyone that can occupy a piece of music and make the air catch on fire at that moment is a true entertainer. That's how I view it. That's what I was meant to do. I love doing it. That's why I'm on earth.
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The music takes you. It has to be alive. It's like you hammer something, and the way it happens to bleed leads you into new directions.
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I never wrote poetry, just prose. I don't really consider songwriting a form of poetry either. The words are important, of course, but they're dependent on the music.
Michael Gira
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I'm pretty confident that people are going to come along for the ride. If they don't, tough.
Michael Gira
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I'm more interested in pulling out strands of joy from both myself and the audience. I'm not saying the music or songs are light, just that when they're performed with the correct commitment it's a source of real pleasure, for me anyway.
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When I first started doing the quieter, more acoustic material in Swans, there was a lot of derision and outright hatred from the audience and press, just as in the early days of Swans when we were rejected outright because of the bludgeoning, single-minded violence of the music.
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I have my own record company. I have to answer to God, basically. I'm not young, so I want to make the best possible work I can before I exit.
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I wanted to challenge myself and move into something new. I felt that using the name Swans and the sonic attitude that that engenders was what I needed to move forward musically, and it's led to lots of new things.
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Playing an old record doesn't interest me at all. It's exactly the opposite of what I want to do.
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It's good that people come to the shows because there's nothing fashionable about Swans. Never has been, really. We've never been part of a scene. So the people that come are really there for the music. Fortunately, there's a lot of young people and a burgeoning female contingent, which is good as well.
Michael Gira