GRiZ Quotes

You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true.

I think what you're always looking for as artists is to be honest and to continue to be honestly driven by that which you are passionately engaged with. It should need not be forced.

A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape,I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.

My concepts are never bright ideas; they're never notions I think will sell or be trendy or attract new fans. I don't think that way. All I can do is sing from my life.

Mainly, I don't like it when music is made solely to impress people or in order to please business people; it doesn't sound good to me. If you're making music in order to become famous or loved by the masses... that's not what I'm about. When somebody's making music for the wrong reasons, I hear it right away.

Everything about the movie 'Dope' is real artistry, and everybody put their full hearts and souls into it. It's a passion project; it's not one of those things everybody got paid a million dollars to do. Everybody on there wanted to do it. Everybody there believed in the project, and we just went for it. We all love each other.

Sometimes, being a feminist artist, there are times where I'm in a position where I just want to feel like I'm saying all the right things politically, or I feel like I have to mention my own project over other people's projects. But I don't do that anymore. I just want to be off the cuff and honest.

My music is going to be true. I'm not out to sell records. I'm experiencing something, and it's what I feel.

I always make music that is true to my spirit.

I just sing the stuff that makes me smile, makes me feel like I didn't sell myself out.

No book that is written for an external purpose is going to be a passionately felt book for the writer or the reader. I don't see the point in doing that.

As long as it feels valid to me and feels sincere, I'll do what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails if it's appropriate. I would hate to think I would ever be in a position where I'm faking it to get a paycheck.

When you write a song, you don't ask if it's good or not, or if it's gonna sell. When you write a song, you ask whether you've reached deep inside your heart and whether it's honest.

I'm down to work with anyone as long as it's an organic collaboration.

I wanted to create a body of work that I was proud of. It's come from honesty and integrity, without forcing anything from myself, the ideas had to come instinctively and organically. Whether that translates to people in that way, it's kind of out of my hands now.

This goes for our songwriting as well as our success as a band - the minute we stopped chasing what we thought people wanted to hear and started writing things that moved us, that's when people started paying attention.

For me, it's about making art that's not good but phenomenal. James Baldwin didn't want to just stay above the fray. Prince didn't think, 'I wonder what the industry is gonna think about 'Purple Rain.'' It's just, is this honest? Is this real? Does this move me? The rest is icing.

If you pretend to be somebody that you're not when you write songs - and I did that on some of the early Styx albums - nobody cares about what you have to say.

As for my relationship to Beethoven, I admire people who can say what they really think. It's as though he's saying, 'That's how I feel about the world, and I don't care what people may say.' His music is pure and honest. Beethoven never pretends to be anybody else.

Leadership, to me, is about the ability to have people want to hear what you have to say. People want to be around you, people want to believe in what you tell them, and they feel good when they walk away from you about who they are and what they're doing.

If you make music with business in your head, it'll show. I make it from the heart. There's a difference.

I don't pull punches at all, and I write my material for adults. But if kids like it, they can come watch it. I'll never change anything about what I do for anyone. I kind of think that's why kids like me. If you're a teenager, and there's someone onstage talking to you like an adult, that's good.

As long as what you do reaches out to people, I don't think there's any reason to stop yourself from doing anything.

I feel like in order for something to connect to an audience there needs to be a form of authenticity.

If I made an album just to sell you a story about how I'm the man, it really doesn't show any human side to me. It's good to talk about what's real and what's relevant.