101 Quotes by Phil Elverum

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.

I never want to keep doing the same thing more than once, honestly.

For awhile the only thing people were talking to me about my music, that's all they ever said: 'You must be a nature lover. Are you camping all the time?'

Nirvana was happening when I was 14, kind of the perfect age. Growing up in Anacortes, Washington, it was close enough to Seattle that it seemed like a local thing.

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.

I'm open to making any kind of music, or maybe making no music ever again. That's also an option, always. Who knows what'll happen.

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.

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?

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.