Quotes by James Mercer

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Maybe it's just parenthood that puts you in a situation where you just have to develop a new attitude, I guess, about things.

James Mercer

Honestly, humans are social creatures that really crave intimacy, and I think that the friends I have who are trying to somehow go it alone are suffering for it.

James Mercer

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.

James Mercer

When I started The Shins, it really was just me, alone, but it was still The Shins. I was totally recording stuff and writing songs as The Shins and all of that. So the beginning inception of the whole thing was some sort of a lie, I guess.

James Mercer

I have no ethics when it comes to art. You just do what you can to make it as beautiful as you can.

James Mercer

The Shins is, in a way, a recording project that turned into a live band. So I don't really keep myself beholden to any rules when I'm in the studio for Shins. I just gotta get it done as best I can.

James Mercer

Collaboration is something I missed at one point in The Shins. I really wanted to have that experience again, you know, not having everything rely on me. I wanted to have a partner.

James Mercer

So happy that Broken Bells is a thing in my life and really cool in so many ways. Not only, like, as something to sell records and be a band and whatnot, but just to give me an outlet and give me a fresh approach on things.

James Mercer

Meeting Perry Farrel was kind of cool. He's such an icon, and I was such a fan of Jane's Addiction.

James Mercer

I have the soundtrack for 'A Clockwork Orange,' which is kind of cool. I guess I don't really end up buying a lot of modern soundtracks. Another soundtrack I love is from a French movie called 'Betty Blue.' it has some really melancholy piano work.

James Mercer

My hope is that one day I'll be able to work and have a quieter life, but still a creative life.

James Mercer

For some reason, it seems like pop writers, it's like they just get worse or something over time. And then you're really jealous of movie directors whose careers seem to grow and they'll be 70 years old and still doing these incredible jobs. I'm goin...

James Mercer

My dad was a Navy munitions officer, and by the end of his career, he was a specialist in nuclear weapons.

James Mercer

As a child, I lived in Germany at the Ramstein air force base, where my dad sang at a nightclub in Kaiserslautern. My parents couldn't afford a babysitter, so when I was, like, ten or 11, I would go with them to the bar until two in the morning.

James Mercer

I think perfect dates involve walking a lot, and not a bunch of driving around in cars. Ideally, you can walk together and go to a restaurant, and then walk from there to another nice place - this is, I guess, because of really great dates that I've ...

James Mercer

The fact that I'm often pushing my voice as hard as I can is from playing in nightclubs in Albuquerque where you don't have a good sound system.

James Mercer

I've never been one to think it was cheating to sample this or to loop the drum part there - I've always done that. Even using four-track cassette recorders, I was always doing whatever I could to make it as good as I could.

James Mercer

My whole goal is to make good records and keep myself inspired and able to accomplish what I need to accomplish.

James Mercer

You have to keep the recording process open. If you make too many decisions before you go in, you can lose out on those serendipitous moments that can really make a record, that I think are always required in the making of a really good record.

James Mercer

Life is sad. People, you know, are going to pass, and you know that you will one day.

James Mercer