70 Quotes by James Mercer

Maybe it's just parenthood that puts you in a situation where you just have to develop a new attitude, I guess, about things.

I think that once you start writing songs, you start developing a library of ideas that you can go and take from, so it gets easier as you go.

My whole goal is to make good records and keep myself inspired and able to accomplish what I need to accomplish.

I tend to write a pretty half and half split of, like, slow, morose things and then sort of more upbeat stuff.

We played a festival in Ireland once, and in the middle of 'New Slang,' the Scissor Sisters kicked in across the field on this mega stage. It was a little distracting. It was hard to keep track of what I was supposed to sing.

There is pressure that comes with everything being a big deal. I remember thinking, 'I need to survive the Shins. I don't know what I'm going to do to make a living otherwise, but I really don't want to do the Shins right now.'

The part of modern pop music I don't know much about is hip hop.

Until having kids, I had never really thought about mortality so much.

You have to keep the recording process open. If you make too many decisions before you go in, you can lose out on those serendipitous moments that can really make a record, that I think are always required in the making of a really good record.