Quotes by Phil Elverum - Page 2

Even when I was calling myself the Microphones I only really ever played new songs... because I feel, like, a pretty strong connection to the song when I'm performing it.
Phil Elverum /
New Songs
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It's really hard just making dinner as a single parent, but I'm figuring it out. I just have to be more focused and efficient with my little scraps of time that I do have.
Phil Elverum /
Efficient
Single Parent
Figuring
Scraps
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I want to create a life that is just healthy and peaceful - an enclave, really, of retreat. It's not helpful for the big picture. It's totally selfish to run away like that.
Phil Elverum /
Big Picture
Peaceful
Retreat
Selfish
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I wanted to make a record that would transcend the bad, hard feelings of a love relationship not working out, to make something that metabolized it into something useful and good.
Phil Elverum /
Love Good Relationship
Transcend
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I don't think my music is that big of a deal - my entire life is parenting. The fact that I make records and go off and play shows is a small percentage of my day-to-day existence.
Phil Elverum /
Parenting
Day To Day
Entire Life
Percentage
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All the books on my shelves, when I would go to them to look for help with my anguish, they all just seemed so crass. They didn't get it. Those books don't understand. Nobody understands.
Phil Elverum /
Anguish
Shelves
Understands
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I buy some black metal records kind of blindly, and I end up really liking maybe 30% of them. There's a lot of duds, for me at least, in black metal. I have kind of picky tastes about it.
Phil Elverum /
Picky
Records
Blindly
Buy
Tastes
Least
Liking
Metal
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I like Copenhagen, just because my shows there have been really good for some reason. Not that I love the city itself, but every time I play there it feels amazing. Pretty nice people there.
Phil Elverum /
Copenhagen
Nice People
Love Time Good
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I do spend time trying to find good melodies, and I try to remember them when I do discover them. But also it's mostly intuitive; I noodle around with the line until it sounds and feels right.
Phil Elverum /
Intuitive
Time Good Remember
Discover
Melodies
Noodle
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I'm really nervous about coming off as exclusive or elitist. At the same time, I recognize that when I put out vinyl or an expensive coffee table book not everyone can afford it or listen to it.
Phil Elverum /
Book
Coffee
Elitist
Exclusive
Expensive
Nervous
Vinyl
Afford
Coffee Table
Coming
Recognize
Same Time
Table
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My first band was called Nubert Circus, a very embarrassing, dumb name. It means nothing. We were kind of grunge. I would say we were more funny punk, a lot of songs about food and stuff like that.
Phil Elverum /
Circus
Dumb
Embarrassing
Punk
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Profound thoughts and profound experiences get revealed to be tricks that we play on ourselves, and poetry gets revealed to be just, like, some dumb words that somebody put in an interesting order.
Phil Elverum /
Dumb
Profound
Revealed
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I got into Nirvana, and it was my sort of awakening into the idea that music could be like rough and crazy and local. And so I started to realize that there were bands playing in my town, Anacortes.
Phil Elverum /
Awakening
Rough
Nirvana
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My exposure to independent music was via Nirvana and grunge so I'd never gotten into punk. I don't really like that music of Crass, but I love the band, and I love their way, and their presentation.
Phil Elverum /
Exposure
Presentation
Punk
Love Music Way
Nirvana
Via
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I have a hard time working with other people with my own songs because I have a pretty complete idea of how it should be. It's usually just me multi-tracking which is better than coercing someone into doing my idea.
Phil Elverum /
Time Me Better
Hard Time
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There are parts on 'Wind's Poem' that are literal recordings of wind. I had this old sound effects record that I got some wind from and then I figured out that distorted cymbals sound just like wind so I used that a lot.
Phil Elverum /
Effects
Literal
Wind
Distorted
Figured
Poem
Recordings
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It's a beautiful idea to focus on how everything is temporary and always in flux. It may feel bad now, but it will feel good later, and vice versa. To write about those things brings this satisfying feeling as a creative person.
Phil Elverum /
Creative Person
Feel Good
Flux
Satisfying
Vice Versa
Versa
Vice
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I am drawn to cold, desolate places rather than Hawaii. I actually love Hawaii too, but I tend to go to Iceland or Norway or Northern Japan - northern places for whatever reason. Which aren't necessarily the best places to tour.
Phil Elverum /
Desolate
Hawaii
Iceland
Japan
Love Best I Am
Northern
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In 2002 I did a big tour of Europe, by train, by myself, on foot, all the time walking from train station to the venue, in a weird town, in a weird country. I'd brought an acoustic guitar with me but it got broken somehow in transit.
Phil Elverum /
Acoustic Guitar
Acoustic
Foot
Transit
Venue
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These people that worked with my dad doing landscaping were in a grunge band so the music on the cover of Rolling Stone was in a very real way connected to people practicing in the woods near my house while I was home doing my homework.
Phil Elverum /
Homework
Rolling
Woods
Home Music Dad
Near
Practicing
Rolling Stone
Stone
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It's easy to get swept up in the day to day ridiculous things that are in the news. They're not meaningless, they're legitimate and worth being engaged with. But it's easy to get overwhelmed and swept up and forget what real life feels like.
Phil Elverum /
Engaged
Meaningless
Overwhelmed
Swept
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Life here (in the Pacific Northwest, not in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland or the chain of buildings connecting them but in the rest of the place, out west and east from the north-south I-5 river) can sometimes feel like a half-dream, half-myth.
Phil Elverum /
Connecting
Pacific
Portland
Vancouver
Buildings
Chain
Life Rest Sometimes
Northwest
River
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My shows have never been related to my albums at all because my albums have all kinds of crazy instruments and stuff that could never be performed live. I'm used to people expecting this 12-piece band to show up with three drum sets and an accordion.
Phil Elverum /
Expecting
Instruments
Related
Accordion
Live People Crazy
Drum
Sets
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I sometimes think about the life that my daughter will have with no mom. What does it mean to have a ghost mom? Not that I can do anything differently about it. But it's an inferior version of what we had planned, you know? This was not our top choice.
Phil Elverum /
Ghost
Inferior
Planned
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I need some time to write songs and work on my thing, but I'm just living my life and doing family stuff and letting inspiration come when it comes. But I also don't feel a desperate need to keep pushing myself into people's faces to stay cool and relevant.
Phil Elverum /
Desperate
Faces
Inspiration
Pushing
Relevant
Life Cool Time
Just Living
Letting
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The universe is chaotic and meaningless, and it's good to laugh about it. That's my stance on life, actually. Some people go through life grinding their teeth, suffering and banging their head against the wall. I'm glad that's not the reaction that occurs in me.
Phil Elverum /
Banging
Chaotic
Glad
Meaningless
Stance
Teeth
Life Good Me
Grinding
Occurs
Reaction
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Clear Moon' is more... clear I guess! It's more round-sounding and it's slightly gentler. 'Ocean Roar' is more challenging and weird and darker and heavier - the idea was for it to feel like a thick fog laying on your head, versus a clear sky with the moon in it.
Phil Elverum /
Ocean
Fog
Moon
Sky
Thick
Versus
Darker
Heavier
Roar
Slightly
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I used to have a musical group with a girlfriend called The Thunderclouds. It was like a Beach Boys cover band. And we would just figure out Beach Boy songs - break 'em into two-part harmonies. And, you know, we played a couple of shows around Olympia. It was very fun.
Phil Elverum /
Beach
Beach Boys
Girlfriend
Harmonies
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I don't really see myself in a lineage which is fine with me. Sometimes I do try to explicitly copy an exact song, an arrangement, a sound - and I fail. And so you can't even tell I was trying to do that thing. It makes sense in my own head but I'm incapable of copying.
Phil Elverum /
Incapable
Lineage
Myself Me Song
Arrangement
Copy
Exact
Explicitly
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It's challenging to live in Anacortes. I lived in Olympia for five years, went on tour for a year, ended up in Norway for a winter, and ended up back in Anacortes. But I have a long life ahead of me. I'll probably live in many different places, and then die in Anacortes.
Phil Elverum /
Long Life
Norway
Winter
Life Me Long
Life Long Me
Different Places
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We had a simple 8-track studio set up in the record store where I worked. And just staying after work and experimenting, realizing what was possible with recording - that's why my project was called The Microphones at first. Because it wasn't even songs really. It was just sound.
Phil Elverum /
Realizing
Staying
Experimenting
Record Store
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There's a lot of music out there that's like, 'I'm so mad! I'm sad! I'm into skulls and crossbones and the color black,' and that's just meaningless and shallow. So much of metal is about that and it's hard to find metal that is substantial and meaningful in terms of its content.
Phil Elverum /
Meaningful
Meaningless
Shallow
Metal
Substantial
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One thing I've heard that makes sense to me about grief is that there's this conception that it's a thing that you process, and then you're done processing it. But really it's not a thing that has an end, it's just what life is like now. You are living with this now, probably forever.
Phil Elverum /
Conception
Grief
Processing
Life Me Process
Life Done Me
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The Beach Boys were my favorite. I use to listen to their hits over and over, especially 'In My Room' and 'Don't Worry Baby.' There's something really sad about 'Don't Worry Baby.' Even though it's just a California song about racing cars, the melody is really sad. There's melancholy in it.
Phil Elverum /
Beach
Beach Boys
Melancholy
Racing
Racing Cars
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I've sort of accidentally put myself in this position where I opened up the story of my life, and of course people want to reciprocate and open up to me. I'm OK at it, I don't make people feel worse, but it's strange to find myself in this role, all of a sudden, that I never would have pursued.
Phil Elverum /
Pursued
Reciprocate
Life Myself Me
Accidentally
Opened
Sudden
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After I made 'A Crow Looked at Me,' I remember people saying things to me like, 'You've made a beautiful tribute to Genevieve.' And I felt like, no! No no no, I haven't. I made a tribute to my own destruction and desolation. This is not a portrait of her. That's not who she was. She wasn't just a person who died.
Phil Elverum /
Crow
Desolation
Destruction
Tribute
Beautiful Me Remember
Portrait
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It is something I've noticed - that my audiences are young. My only thought has been because I play all-ages shows. Even so, they're pretty young, and sometimes I'm nervous the content of my songs - these weird, ambiguous, philosophical ideas I'm trying to articulate. Are the kids getting it? Is it going over their heads?
Phil Elverum /
Ambiguous
Philosophical
Articulate
Heads
Noticed
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Phil Elverum Quotes - Page 2

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