Dan Bejar Quotes
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I've never had any kind of work ethic. I've never sat down with the intention of writing a song.
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I knew what real instruments I wanted and, in some cases, who I wanted to play them. I had started listening to a lot of ambient music and jazz and I wanted to incorporate stuff like that, too.
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I'm just a sucker for new-agey synth sounds and instrumentation. I wasn't really thinking of soft rock, but I know that kind of quiet-storm format uses a lot of these sounds.
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It never really interested me in the past but, for the first time, I wanted to make a pop record. I thought a good way of doing it would be to make songs that didn't really make sense to me as songs; songs that I couldn't just sit down and play in front of someone and then get them to play over it.
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Even though people like to say Destroyer [albom] is gibberish and all that, I usually know exactly what I'm saying at every single moment.
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There are too many Destroyer records to just start rattling them left them off, but they're there.
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I like putting common expressions next to uncommon expressions. I'm sure in Poetry 101 there is a name for it, but it seems like you usually go one way or the other in rock music.
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No one appreciates a professional anymore. Everyone's a mystic. Which is why I take drunk Jim over acid Jim - the argument all roads eventually lead to.
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I guess my guitar parts are usually precise, but the execution of those parts is downright treacherous, since I'm not very good on guitar.
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It's actually really stereotypical that someone should be 40 and mellow out, but I think it's more about trying to conjure up a different intensity in my head, one where I'm more focused as a singer and hands-on with music and more exacting, and less trying to furiously fit a thousands thoughts into a four minute song.
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I think the more removed I feel, the more I warm up to the role of singer.
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People say I write specifically about nothing in particular. I don't know about the latter part, but I think the first part is really important in conjuring up a voice that works, or at least the illusion of a voice at work.
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I always start with the lyrics, because starting with the music means the words will be bad.
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Once you feel like you can safely quit a melody, you are free to explore more important things.
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I don't banter with the audience, cause I don't have anything to say to them, and I'm not feeling any sense of ease or camaraderie when I'm on stage.
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Of course, no lyrics are ever unintentional, but I think bands like Wolf Parade and the Arcade Fire have a tendency to touch on big themes without really following through on them or tying them in to a particular logic.
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Moments of unexpected sweetness happen when romance enters, which always happens in songs - if just for a split second.
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Most musicians don't write about being a musician cause most musicians aren't writers.
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I certainly didn't predict people who spent years actively disliking the band to all of a sudden like the band. That's pretty funny to me, and it makes playing live kind of interesting, 'cos we're doing lots of things that don't really have a lot to do with that record, and even presenting the songs off that record in a way that's a little more muscular and without as much of the sheen, which is what I think part of what people really liked [about Kaputt].
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I like playing music. I don't always like the feeling of people looking at me. I don't think I'm a natural performer, but I'm getting better.
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I'm more focused as a singer and hands-on with music and more exacting, and less trying to furiously fit a thousands thoughts into a four minute song.
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I like playing music. I don't always like the feeling of people looking at me. I don't think I'm, like, a natural performer, but I'm getting better.
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I can't fool myself into thinking that musically I don't need other people, whether it's as a foil or just to come in and make real the ideas that are kind of vague and wispy in my head.
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The more I abandon ideas of myself as a musician, the better a singer I become.
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When I go to a show, all I really want is to hear a performance that sounds legitimate, and not just going through the motions. I'm not sure any amount of jumping up and down really persuades me in either direction.
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I'm just kind of lazy and messed up and self-managed - self-mismanaged.
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I used to struggle a little bit with the idea of how to separate singing from acting and entertaining.
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I don't really listen to rock music anymore. But were I to write a song that sounded like it could be a rock song, I'd probably give it to the Pornographers, and I'd be excited to try to make it work.
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I was born in 1972, which means that in "rock" terms I have no business addressing "the kids" unless it's to shoo them out of my garden.
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When I'm on stage I don't say anything. The last thing I want to do is share my thoughts. I don't know if that's mysterious - maybe it's just old fashioned.
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