I'm really honored that Bon Iver gives me a platform to do whatever I want, but there's only so much time you can spend digging through yourself before you become insular. I'm not in a hurry to go back to that temperature.
When you are on tour in the UK it takes a few hours to get anywhere. A lot of the time you can have a beer, close your eyes for two minutes, and then you are there. In the U.S. it is much more like a road trip as all the cities are so spread apart.
When I get all focused on songwriting, I get into all the marketing and promotion that we do to make it happen. Then the right song comes along and blows it all out of the water. The right song will do it for you every time.
Obviously, the Sixties was a time when everyone wanted to experiment, and then everything became very formulated and corporate, so artists tended to get pushed into a kind of pattern. Now, I think that has continued with the emergence of televised ta...
Technically, I've been retired for some time now. All I ever do is occasionally write songs for friends, such as one, for a friend who had just turned 80. I wrote a song for him called, The First 80 Years are The Hardest.
I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.
Stop trying to treat music like it's a tennis shoe, something to be branded. If the music industry wants to save money, they should take a look at some of their six-figure executive expense accounts. All those lawsuits can't be cheap, either.
The first time I had money, I was extravagant, but then you realise it's not just about that. If I lost it all tomorrow, it wouldn't be me that's hurt, it would be my babies. It would be more about people's opinion of me that would concern me.
I feel like the people from Iceland have a different relationship with their country than other places. Most Icelandic people are really proud to be from there, and we don't have embarrassments like World War II where we were cruel to other people.
The relationship between 'My Chemical Romance' and Michael Pedicone is over. He was caught red-handed stealing from the band and confessed to police after our show last night in Auburn, Washington. We are heartbroken and sick to our stomachs over thi...
Lotta people don't realize when you grow up with people, you have an affinity, a relationship you don't get with anyone else. After you're twenty years old, anyone you meet after that, it's different from the people you knew before.
Anyone who has had their heart broken learns to keep a little safety area. Even now in my relationship, I have something I can call my own in case something goes wrong. You need a place to retreat to.
With any cover, I like to choose songs that affected me strongly already. So it's tough sometimes to take a song that you love so much and put your own spin on it because you get such a strong feeling from the original.
It's the coolest part about writing music. I don't know how other people work, but so much is derived from some amalgamation of all these different songs that I love. That's why they jump all over the place.
Running in Central Park is my favorite thing to wake up and do. I have my own specific path that I have to run every single time. There's a little bit of OCD involved, but I love it.
To make a living from doing something I love is fantastic. As long as people want to listen to me, I'll keep doing it. In fact, to tell you the truth, even if no one did want to listen to me, I'd still be doing it!
As I grew up, I was interested in other areas, too, especially literature. It became a major love of mine. Later, it became a difficult choice for me as to whether to major in music or literature. It wasn't until my 30s that I began a profession in m...
I've become more introverted as I've got older. I used to be an outgoing person who joked around a lot, but as the amount of energy I expend by sharing my music has increased, I like to balance it by spending time by myself and recuperating.
The two have to go hand in hand - the atmosphere and the music. I actually get rather worried if I can't see the music first. There always needs to be a mood, a feeling, a story, even if it is abstract. There's got to be a narrative to guide things b...
My strength as a singer is my versatility. I find it really frustrating when I'm only expected to show off. The music industry is awash with female acrobats. What happens to the song, and treating it for its sake and not as an ego example?
I did a couple songs with this hip-hop guy named Tim Dark. He was working in the same studio I've been working in, he heard my music and he said, aw man, I've got to do something with you.