John Darnielle Quotes

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

I don't really have loads of friends - three or four who are close. The thing that I love the most is playing with my band, and with everything else I feel kind of uncomfortable. I don't think I'm socially awkward. I just prefer being behind a piano.

Edible names are what drives me as a musician. My next band will be called the Hot Dogs.

There would be no Static-X if I didn't write all the songs.

When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.

Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren't playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I'd still be doing it because that's what I want to do. I love playing the guitar.

First and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I'm other things... But I didn't play drums to make money.

I'm shy. I am. I mean, if I get around, you know, in a room of a bunch of people especially I - you know, I don't know or - it takes me a while to warm up. I'm - and the real me, I'm not as witty as, you know, as the comic Wanda. The comic, she's had time to work on some things.

I had been inspired by an organ player named Earl Grant, who played organ and piano together. My mom took me to see him. So I went home, put my piano and organ together, too.

Once I'd heard 'Modern Times' by Bob Dylan, it really changed the way I wanted to make records.

As soon as I started writing the first batch, I had a vision. I saw me on stage playing a certain type of music. I want to take these blues melodies over aggressive guitars. I heard the sound I wanted to make. I knew what I wanted to do. It wasn't ever there before.

But KISS inspired me personally to pick up a guitar and go for it.

I always tell girls who say they want to start a band but don't have any talent, 'Well, neither do I.' I mean, I can carry a tune, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out. You don't have to have magic unicorn powers.

Music is a big part of my life. I listen to different genres, and I choose the music that will inspire the next part of my story.

I definitely wasn't cool in high school. I really wasn't. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas. But I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things.

It's been said that I formed The Wallflowers to hide my name but, really, I've always wanted to be in a band - right from the day my friends and I soundproofed a garage with bed-covers for our first rehearsal.

I can play the trumpet. Before I became an actor, I wanted to be the next Louis Armstrong. I started young and got to grade seven. When I turned 13, everyone started whipping out guitars, looking cool and joining rock bands, so I stopped playing.

I always just wanted to be the singer or the bass player in the band. I'd love to have a band, where I was obviously the singer, but where it wasn't me, it wasn't my name.

And at the same time, I had my very first concert at the age of 16. I hadn't heard a symphony orchestra before, and I was so deeply impressed I said I have to be a conductor.

When I got into music, I wanted to learn guitar just enough to be able to write songs. I wanted to be able to express myself.

As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you're trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people's music.

My voice is a combination of how I grew up and what I was listening to growing up. I like a lot of different kinds of music and am always being inspired in different ways by different artists for different reasons.

We played some gigs in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago and it was the first time I really felt the group was really a band in the sense of something I could write for.

When you talk or write or film, you work with the music inside you, the music that formed you. Different generations have different musics in them, so whatever they do, it's going to come out differently, and it will speak in beats of their own generation.

I never have anything to talk about.