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When a band means a lot to you, you build the fantasy more than the reality. Always.

Stephen Malkmus

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Stephen Malkmus
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: May 30
Guitarist
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Santa Monica
California
Stephen Joseph Malkmus
Fantasy
Build
Band
Means
Reality
Mean
Always

More quotes by Stephen Malkmus

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I really do think everybody can sing.
Stephen Malkmus
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Like the song Stereo, to me that's like, kind of hip-hop in that slacker way. There's some slackerisms mixed in with that stuff, but it wasn't really conscious, I guess. When things would get more typical rock'n'roll that was my fallback to go to those kind of lyrics instead of the alternatives.
Stephen Malkmus
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Maybe I don't have the patience to make a virtue of necessity - the patience to carry something all the way through, and to actually say something. Lately, the songs are more jagged and they don't really lend themselves to that. I just take it one bit at a time.
Stephen Malkmus
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I never decided to start singing, to be a singer.
Stephen Malkmus
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My wife says that I changed people's lives or ways of thinking and that I should always be proud and grateful. If I'm dismissive of what we do sometimes, a little bit, she's like, I was a fan, you changed my life, or whatever. That's what she says.
Stephen Malkmus
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A good voice isn't so important. It's more important to sound really unique.
Stephen Malkmus
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Something taken off the page can sound great, I guess. Usually it doesn't. It seems like lately Pitchfork is trying to champion lyric writers more.
Stephen Malkmus
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I'm thinking, I'm singing like Ozzy Osbourne, but I don't sound like him enough, ever.
Stephen Malkmus
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So much of rock lyrics is just a mirror of real feeling. It doesn't feel dangerous to me. They just feel like rock lyrics.
Stephen Malkmus
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That's why you go to a nice studio. You can get a magic take. You don't really have to do anything to it.
Stephen Malkmus
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My wife is a big fan of George Oppen and I got into him. I could have a career like his. It's not an alpha male situation, George Oppen. It's quiet. It's poetry.He just lived a life of an intellectual poet.
Stephen Malkmus
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I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head.
Stephen Malkmus
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I'm more into describing a scenario and I move around in that scenario.
Stephen Malkmus
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I want to do some different kind of songs, but say I want to do riffs, but I don't come up with any riffs that I really think are great. Then I can't do a riff album. I'm more of a song, melody person.
Stephen Malkmus
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Basically, no one else gives me any opinions on lyrics. I don't ask for them. If they did, I would listen.
Stephen Malkmus
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I'm not sure if you can blame everything on the American way of life, but the United States are big. So, if you have a lot of people there, the percentage of stupid people is bound to be higher.
Stephen Malkmus
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If you want to be negative about the whole thing you can say all guitar bands after the Beatles were just a waste of time because the Beatles were the best. I think it's far better to give new records a try.
Stephen Malkmus
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I've been getting plenty off my chest. Sometimes I get too much off my chest and I regret it.
Stephen Malkmus
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There's probably a certain confidence in your voice, or something, that is validated. You know what I mean? I'm just imagining if people didn't already say that you were cool, that you'd [have] more doubt in what you're doing. That's not so conscious, but that's part of my cosmology now.
Stephen Malkmus
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I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.
Stephen Malkmus