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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
Music
Along
Ruined
Ever
Involved
Punk
Kind
Went
Quit
Never
Since
Quitting
Life
Came
Musician
Art
Rock
Thought
Rocks
School
Late

More quotes by Michael Gira

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When I walk around New York now, there are so many ghosts. I find it very uncomfortable. There were many hard years, and I never really achieved any kind of comfortable financial success, so I just associate it with struggle. When I had a chance to get out, I was elated.
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I'm pretty confident that people are going to come along for the ride. If they don't, tough.
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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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Maybe in the future I'll put out someone's one-off project, but generally I don't have time.
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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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I'm the band leader. That's not to say that the other people are my minions - they all put in a tremendous amount of personality, and push the music in ways I would never expect.
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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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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 could never release something on the label I didn't personally love. The label's really an extension of my own musical career, and I'm intensely involved with every aspect personally, so it'd be a betrayal to myself if I released something simply because I thought it would make money.
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I really wanted to get to the animal core of rock music and eliminate anything that wasn't necessary.
Michael Gira
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I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound.
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The sexuality of children - there's a lot friction there. That tension interests me a lot.
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Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments.
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Making those CDs, signing them, numbering them, packing them. It takes hundreds of hours, but it's worth it because I'm able to do the thing I love.
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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I used to routinely break my ribs doing stupid things onstage, but I have a healthy fear of breaking my bones now.
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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I got involved, for the most part, in the actual song construction, lyrics even. I didn't want to write the lyrics, but if there was a howler in there, I definitely pointed it out. Just trying to bring it up to a higher level. Of course, after a couple records, people get fed up with that. That's fine.
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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 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.
Michael Gira