70 Quotes by James Mercer

The fact that I'm often pushing my voice as hard as I can is from playing in nightclubs in Albuquerque where you don't have a good sound system.

The real challenge of writing songs isn't just writing a bunch of parts - like a verse, chorus, verse - but making something that flows together, that brings you back.

Life is sad. People, you know, are going to pass, and you know that you will one day.

Lyrically, I think I'm frustrated with this whole process of trying to figure out what I believe about the world and life. I don't like to adopt a sort of guiding philosophy.

So happy that Broken Bells is a thing in my life and really cool in so many ways. Not only, like, as something to sell records and be a band and whatnot, but just to give me an outlet and give me a fresh approach on things.

Meeting Perry Farrel was kind of cool. He's such an icon, and I was such a fan of Jane's Addiction.

My dad was a Navy munitions officer, and by the end of his career, he was a specialist in nuclear weapons.

My attempt at really doing classic sort of songwriting is Shins stuff.

My hope is that one day I'll be able to work and have a quieter life, but still a creative life.