Labrinth Quotes

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

No one is mediating aesthetic choices on an OPN album other than myself.

I'm not someone who has to make a film at any cost. I have to find the right way to make it or not at all.

The only way artists can do things is to do it for themselves. Trying to second guess what the public wants or likes is kind of a fool's game.

I practice the artist's golden rule. I wouldn't want somebody telling me how to finish my painting, I'm not going to tell him how to finish his movie or how to shape his movie.

I'm not going to stop painting just to take orders.

Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public.

The dean of the American Film Institute has written that I'm one of the very few auteurs in America. I've had freedom for 40 years to create art that is totally personal and is what I believe in.

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

I've never worried about how a new release will be received. I simply try to do the best I can and leave the rest to the gods. The music industry in those terms is something I loathe and detest. It conjures up images of a gigantic factory spewing out parts of the machine.

I did not start IC and Inteam to have control over my music. I had control before and after.

I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

Generally, when a record label suggests album ideas for you, you smile politely, and then proceed to shoot it down, because it's never what you as an artist feel is right for you.

I never had many problems to do my music and to give it to a record company. Rarely do they try to argue with me about my music, probably because it's still too far-out.

I like Modest Mouse. I'm our biggest fan. And enemy. I won't waste people's time by putting out a Modest Mouse record just because. That's fair, right?

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

I'm not a slave to the recording industry. I have the freedom to make an album that I want to make and do it the way I want.

I don't want money to ever drive my career. I want my career to be driven by what I want to do in art.

You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.

We don't want other people poking into our artistic pie.

I have to be able to be the artist that I am.

When I did 'Tapestry' with Carole King, the record was spare and simple, like a demo. If someone had told me to go back and put horns on it, it would've been all wrong. If you're enthusiastic enough to sign an artist, let them do what got you enthusiastic.

Whenever I release a record, it's my record. It's not a selfish thought. I may work all year 'round for other people. So, finally, when I come out with my own album, it should be me with the creative help of other musicians.