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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.

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
Possible
Exit
Young
Basically
Best
Record
Work
Answer
Make
Records
Answers
Company

More quotes by 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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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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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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The sexuality of children - there's a lot friction there. That tension interests me a lot.
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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'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 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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Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments.
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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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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 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.
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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.
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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.
Michael Gira
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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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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.
Michael Gira
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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.
Michael Gira
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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.
Michael Gira
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I'm a producer in the old-school way - not just some slacker working on Pro Tools.
Michael Gira
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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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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.
Michael Gira