James Iha Quotes

It's just nice to do something a bit different, and I guess when you're an actor, you have the license to do that.

You've got to do something to fill up your day. And I can only play so much guitar and watch so many TV shows. It fulfills me. There are two things about it I like: It makes me happy, and it makes other people happy.

To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.

Success is just hanging out with my kids. I mean, I always say if you have options, you're rich. To me, success is the fact that hey, I just did a movie and maybe I'll do some stand up, maybe I'll will write a book or maybe I will do a play.

Some guys dig ditches, I have a band. It's what I do

It's fun, working with different people, everybody works differently. When I have time off from music, I want to make other music. That's what I do, that's what's fun, that's what makes me happy.

I'm not a human interest story, man. I'm just a musician trying to make some small records and be happy, be peaceful.

The more I can stay on the creative side, the happier I am.

For me, music is a byproduct of this process - the human process - and the fact that I've managed to eke out a career with it is a happy accident more than any strategy.

I don't think one should be a slave to one medium.

I always look for inspiration, and the creativity of artists is an essential element to my life, my work, and my happiness.

I'm a regular person. I'm a regular guy. As a kid, I played games. As a kid, I liked poetry. As a kid, I liked drawing. And I never felt the need to stop doing anything. I never lost interest in them.

Personally, I experience success when I enjoy what I'm doing. I love the creative process, even if the end result isn't embraced by anyone else.

Well before I was in a band, I wanted to be everything from a vet, an astronaut, an archeologist was a big one. It could be very wide-ranging because I had a lot of different interests including music so I'm very happy where I wound up.

Anything was better than playing cards, and I was doing something I wanted to do creating.

Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

I don't like to stick to one formula. That gets boring. I get bored, so I want to try different ways of getting inside something.

What's enjoyable for me, as an actor, is to do as many different things as possible.

I just like being creative, whatever way I have to do it.

There's a beauty in work and I love it, all different kinds of work. That's what I consider it. Rock is my job, and that's my work. And I work my ass off, you know.

Each movie is different because each audience is different. You're not dictated by what they tell you to do. You're more dictated by seeing symptoms of things you didn't intend, and how you can fix those symptoms.

Who is my role model and how long can I keep this going? I just move around and do different things and come back to music, try making films and come back to music, write children's books and come back to music.

We're in a very competitive industry, and sometimes the bigger Hollywood things are not so risk takey. I find myself mostly existing in this weirdo indie world, which I feel really comfortable being in. The thing that motivates me the most is to try to do something way different than the last thing that I did.

People think, "Oh my god, you've been doing this job for so many years, it must get boring." It's like, "No, hell no," because I get to sing, I get to dance, I get to be on TV and in films, I get to do merchandising, licensing, show up at conventions, write, or take photographs for my book. There are so many different things going on for me that it never gets boring. It's always fun and interesting.

If you're with a good band and everybody's from the old school, it's different. When you're in your element, you're in your element and things just come. You don't have to drag them out or force them out. They just happen.