Michael Penn
If folk is the music of the common people and not the intellectual elite, then that's what rock is.
I sort of felt like, as the black sheep, I didn't want to go into the family business; everyone would think it was nepotism.
I'm an oblique guy.
Just talking about the schedule and logistics of a tour is fine, but if the interview gets into lyrics and the music in a real way, that's difficult.
I always try so hard not to repeat myself, not to do something I've heard before. It definitely cuts into my output.
I wouldn't balk at having a hit single, because it would allow me some of the freedom to do some of the things I want to do. By the same token, I would be suspicious of my own work if I did.
I just had a real visceral, negative reaction to show-biz familes. They tend to be a freakish celebrations of dysfunction. Like a circus sideshow.
I was not a sports guy in school; I was in the geeky music clique. We shared a spot on the quad with the drama geeks.
I loved the first Liz Phair album, and Beck's first.
I used to be paranoid for a couple reasons.
If I was good at talking about my music, I'd be a lecturer or a teacher.
If somebody were to have told me that I wasn't gonna get signed with a label deal until the end of my 20s, I don't know if I would have kept going.
People get signed to labels by an executive who wants to make his mark at the label.
That was a real debate for me whether to change my name, which I felt was a lie, or to make up a band name, which I also felt was a lie. So I just felt the best way to deal with that was to be honest about it, and make sure that the label didn't make it an issue, and just sort of brave the shrapnel.
I'm not sure pop music is ever really healthy. It always needs something dangerous. If it doesn't keep that edge, it gets taken over by people in suits.
I think it helped all of us that we had creative parents. They understood what it was like when a kid wanted to get into a creative that it could be a struggle.
I think one of the most damaging things in pop music is the complete categorization of most music.
When I talk about pop music needing someone dangerous, I wish that could be me.
Doll Congress was an experimental thing, in a way, where the arrangements were almost more important than the songs.
When you try in a relationship, there is a concerted effort to make it work on the part of one of the people.
I've always felt rock is folk music.
I got into music when I was pretty young, and there were a lot of shining lights to me.
I was into all the standard 60s stuff like the Beatles, the Stones and Dylan, and I like David Bowie quite a bit.
When you're writing about a relationship, whether it's an interpersonal one or not, it's still about communication and trying to be understood on your side of the fence.
I've never been too comfortable with the whole between-song-banter thing.
I'm just trying to keep working.
I think everyone has their own personal fashion.
I liked The Band, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Costello, The Clash, Tom Waits and thousands of others.
I just got into music very heavily as a kid and I pretty much knew I wanted to be a musician.
If you talk about, say, 'Romeo and Juliet,' most people will think of it as a play about the highest form of romantic love. They won't realize that it is a horrible tragedy. And this notion of a soul mate is so damaging. That isn't love at all.
I'm not interested in getting up on a box and yelling, 'Sinner repent.'
I'm not going to be an entertainer, in the sense of trying to do more than get across the song.
Performing is not the most natural function of a human being, I'm convinced.
I'm very happy for the success of Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
When I was in high school, it was sort of the peak of progressive education.
There was actually a rock poetry class at my school.
Record companies are like cat breeders who find a breed they can make some money off of, in-breed it until it's sickly and dying off, and then move on to the next breed.
I've always loved working in the studio. I can point up nuances and detail in songs that I can't live.
To get a song on radio requires an enormous amount of money and cooperation.
I really enjoy getting to make records. I get to do something for a living I really love doing.
To me, playing with words is like playing with your food. You shouldn't do it.
Basically, what happened was, Lena was on the fence as to whether or not she wanted 'Girls' to have a theme song. She asked me to write one, so I did.
That entitlement and the sort of - I think that's just perennial. I just think that's constant. And it's part of the American experience of the 21st century, period.
Well, I was born in New York.
Playing live doesn't inform how I write songs, and I don't write much on the road, because it's not a conducive atmosphere.
Aimee and I are seen as very dour songwriters, and we're both kind of uncomfortable just talking.
It's quite different writing for films and for myself. You have to help guide a scene along emotionally, and the wrong approach can just be deadly.
The Beatles, Dylan and Rolling Stones are definitely my earliest roots.
It's been a long process, becoming happy with expression.
I've been writing songs since I was a kid. You just hope that you get better.