Stephen Malkmus Quotes

With my first three albums I did everything on my own. It was what I was used to and where I felt comfortable. I would write the lyrics and music and hide the songs from everyone until I felt confident enough for anyone to hear them.

I put a lot of work into my lyrics. Not all my stuff is meant to be scrutinized, though.

I have to believe that I know what's best for me. For instance, I choose all my songs. I never record anything I don't want to record. No one tells me what concerts to do.

I just make the movies I want to see. I've always been that way.

A lot of people have an opinion. If you listen to them too much, your work will get influenced, and you make no one happy.

For me, I think you make a choice what kind of actor you want to be, and then it's kind of the material you choose.

I want to be a genuine artist who has a say in what I do.

The reason 'Detox' didn't come out was because I didn't like it.

The main thing that's important to me is getting to do whatever project it is the way that I do what I do, and that's different. To go to an entity - whether it's a traditional film studio or some newer company, or HBO, Amazon or Netflix - they would have to know that I need to work the way I work.

I didn't want to just be an artist and let someone else have all that control over me. I knew I would have to produce.

As a filmmaker, one tends to want to evolve evermore towards a place of independence.

George felt the group wasn't giving him the freedom he needed to develop his songwriting. But I have to admit the end came a little sooner than I expected.

Trends keep changing, but I have and will always do what I like to do!

I couldn't be an artist who was told what to do, what to be, what to sing.

Loads of verses don't make it into the finished song.

I really preferred the characters I could totally create by myself, because I always think of myself as an actor first.

A lot of my stuff just wasn't saleable. I still don't do private or corporate commissions. It becomes like interior design. I don't enjoy it. The process makes me feel physically sick.

I'm not trying to appeal to anybody. I just try to do my thing and make the best music I can make.

I always felt like an outsider of the industry, and now I feel quite comfortable as an independent artist.

If I could have stayed independent from the jump, then, maybe, things would have been different. 'Return of 4Eva' would have been an album instead of a mixtape.

I've written all of my songs, I directed all my videos. Every part of what I've done for music, from the visuals to the business, I did it. And I'm really proud of that.

Some people don't understand that I - as an artist and a person - I want to make my own decisions and create the music that I personally like.

I like artists to have some freedom.

I think with the 'Fred' videos online, I prefer doing it by myself. I mean it's YouTube. You want to have all the creative control because that's the only place in the world where you get that.

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.