Aaron Dessner Quotes

Well, my musicians are my friends.

The guys in my band are good friends on and off the stage. The band members that I have now is probably the best band that I have ever had.

When you're doing collaborative music, the relationship that forms is a very bonding kind of experience.

The longevity of a band is really contingent on loving the people that you're making music with and being able to get along in the long run. It's just like being married, except you're married to more than one person!

In a band that works out well, everybody has a certain role to fulfill.

I feel so lucky to have been in a group where it was a real band. This wasn't a singer and guitar player and some other guys.

John was great to work with, and a lot of fun. I wish I'd had the chance to make more music with him, of course, and to get to know him better.

The Fat Mattress consisted of people I'd played with before joining the 'Experience and it was put together as a song writing situation.

When you form a band, you form a real relationship that's like a marriage. It's an emotional connection, especially when you're young... because you don't know what's out there.

I just think that with music, it's kind of like life, and so the people you work with, you generally develop a relationship. You don't have to try to explain things. You just know. It's like you're in the band together and striving for the same goal.

The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he's the guy that made that sound, he's the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don't have a band, you know.

When you're a songwriter and you click with someone, you tend to want to keep writing with that person.

Working with people, the musical part is one thing but the personal part is totally different and just as critical. If the friendship is there and it's a lasting friendship, then it will take care of itself.

People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts.

Marty and I are playing with the same intensity. That's the beautiful thing, man, we're actually better now than ever, probably more intense now than ever, tighter now than ever.

Just because you put super great musicians together, it doesn't mean you're going to have that chemistry as a band.

A band is like a marriage - you don't know why it works, but when it does, everything feels right.

I'm glad you asked that question, because of any musical situation I've been in, the communication feels great here with Russell. He really pays close attention to what I'm doing because he cares.

For the most part, I really love being in a collaborative thing. And in a collaborative thing if you have a singer as good as Sean Smith or Eddie Vedder, you kind of think, well, why don't you just go ahead and let them sing? People seem to really like it.

Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community.

I mean, the great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them.

As always in a musical collaboration: One has to like each other. As simple as that.

I've learned that you can call it a band, but unless everyone is contributing, it's not, really. It's pretending that it's a band.

I have two or three guys that I'm really close to. We have a great friendship, and I think that helps our songwriting relationship. It's hard to start... with new people and cover the ground that I've covered with those guys.

Find someone you can jam with. That's a big deal. When you play with someone else, you gotta work together to get the thing started and in time, working and in the groove.