Bryce Dessner Quotes

I've been recording since 1993. It was a hobby for six of those years. In 1999, I decided to do it full time and take it seriously.

Coming from my bedroom in San Antonio to this big world and going from singing covers off my laptop to making music in this nice studio, making professional-sounding music - it's just weird.

I had four or five years in school training as a soprano. I fell into pop singing because of economics. I got out of high school and had to go work, and they weren't hiring opera singers.

I moved to London to go to dance school when I was about 17, but then I realized that I didn't want to be a dancer anymore, so I dropped out after five or six weeks. All I wanted to do was sing and make music.

I really didn't intend to be a musician when I left Japan.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.

I struggled to keep one foot in music and one in academia. I had worked on my Ph.D. for three years full time before I realized Bad Religion could be a legitimate career.

I love the fact we're still on the road. I was born to be a factory worker really, so for me the chance to get on stage at Wembley 30 years after we started is amazing.

I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. So I made an economic decision, and it turned out the best judgment I ever made in my life.

I was working so hard at music and trying to do this whole 'industry' thing and realised that it wasn't for me.

I was a business major, but the more I played music and the more I got into songwriting, I realized this is what I loved, but I kept asking myself, 'Is this what I'm supposed to do - move to Nashville?'

I never thought being a musician would be something I could make a career out of.

I never wished to be a 'rock star.' I just wanted to be a working musician. My dreams didn't even go past a session player or a working musician. It was too far beyond my dreams.

In my mind, I was never going to have the things I wanted if I played music for a living, unless I became a rock star.

I made that decision around the time of 'Halloween,' whether I wanted to continue trying to be a singer and rock and roll player or get into movies.

When I'm 40, too old to be a rock star, I plan to go back to college to study classical music.

I pretty much started going more towards the singing route when I came out with the song 'Selfish.'

My career definitely took an unexpected change in direction when it came to 'Here Lies Love.'

I did classical music when I was a teenager, but the experience of performing a classical concert felt too frighteningly pristine for me to continue with it.

Once I get to a certain level, I don't want to rap all my life.

Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing. So I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.

I really had no aspirations for becoming a DJ, and now I find myself having to campaign to be in the DJ Top 100.

I was really young when I signed with Spinnin' Records, and the huge success of 'Animals' hit me by surprise. I didn't expect my life to turn like that at all. But it was a very welcome surprise, to say the least!

Even in high school, music was just a really fun thing on the side. I don't think I grasped the fact that it could be a profession.