Matt Berninger Quotes
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Somehow, you realize you can kind of do anything in music. You don't have to be good at a certain thing; you can just do whatever you want.
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There are records that you just sink into. They coincide with what you’re going through and become an ally. If our records do that for people, that’s the greatest compliment I could ever receive. That’s one of the reasons making music is so important to me, because there’s a very strange emotional reach. For me—more than books or movies or other things—music is like a mainline to your heart.
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Live on coffee and flowers. Try not to worry what the weather will be.
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Music has got a community vibe to it that pulls people together, and those communities are different in different places.
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I'm trying to figure out how to record at home because I have a tiny house and a seven-year-old and my wife also works at home. So I can't work in the house because she's trying to write, so I pitched a tent in the backyard. I'm literally trying to record in the tent.
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It is the melody and the rhythm that are by far the most important and then words and imagery and stuff, story bits will start to stick to a melody and that is the way I write.
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Once you do have a child you want to talk about every detail of it. And it is really boring to all your friends and it should be.
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I'm not saying I'm not a moody guy sometimes, but I think I have a pretty normal balance.
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Maybe because I have spent too much of my life in rock clubs. I don't really go to parties anymore either. I'll usually be in the bus by 11:30 after a show.
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We were always in the shadows of the stuff that was getting more attention. So people learned to listen to us slowly over time. And, frankly, we learned how to listen to ourselves. It takes us a long time to write a song that we all really like, so it makes sense that it would take a while for the listener to get there, too.
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I drink wine on stage to sort of loosen my grip on reality a little.
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I became at peace with the darkness or the personality that I have. I am usually pretty funny and happy.
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A different drumbeat or some vocal overdub could completely transform the song.
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I never sit and fill a journal with lyrics. Most of the time I'm trying to write a feeling, not a story. I'm not necessarily trying to describe the details of a place or event so much as the feeling of the thing. It is a kind of weird alchemy that is elusive until it feels right.
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I think most people start rock bands in their early twenties or teens, but I was almost thirty at the time when the band started really doing anything and it took another several years before people started caring about us.
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I've never quite felt totally comfortable up on stage. I've gotten more comfortable, but drinking wine is a crutch that gives me a little courage. It helps me lose a little bit of the self-consciousness and the awareness of how awkward it is standing on a stage with lights and a bunch of people looking at you while you sing love songs.
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Not all the songs are real events, but I do write about stuff that is close to my heart and it comes out one way or another.
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Getting on stage and performing and standing under lights is such an unsettling experience - in a good and bad way - but it's the only place I can go to feel comfortable.
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My parents know that I have always been sort of a dark melodramatic kid, so they were never concerned.
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Lyrics need to be good, but they don't need to be obvious right away.
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A song is a song and, if I am emotionally connected to do it, whether it is sad or not sad, I am going to chase that song.
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A person with grace is somebody who's socially graceful or is a classy person, but sometimes you just feel the opposite of that, and you just feel like a jerk and a loser and a weirdo.
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I'm going to keep drinking on stage. I have a pretty healthy relationship with alcohol. I know how far to go and when to stop.
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Weirdly, I was still trying to be the older brother, and trying to get him [Tom Berninger] to try to be more like me a little bit. Or not be more like me but... I was frustrated that he sometimes let things stop him in his life, and he let the wind get knocked out of his sails a few times.
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I actually don't go to shows anymore. Rock concerts have lost their appeal for me.
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I usually always think of characters and sometimes the characters are a little bit invented, so it's nice to give these invented, blurry, personas an actually name. It makes me get closer to them or something like that. But they're not all real, they're weird amalgamations of reality.
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You gotta lean towards the things that make you like yourself. Forget everything else.
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I'm doing a little freelance work, and I think everybody's trying to take their minds off rock and roll for a little while and get some perspective.
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The last thing you want to do is write songs about being in a band.
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I don't want somebody telling my daughter who she can marry, or what she can do with her body. That's what was at stake.
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