Joey Santiago Quotes

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

I never tried to sing like anybody else, fortunately I didn't sound like anybody else. It just happened.

There's a large opportunity for Bon Iver to be a special thing, even from a business standpoint - just trying to do cooler things. Every band sells t-shirts and plays certain auditoriums, but I'm sick of being like everyone else, because I'm not.

Don't be a blueprint. Be an original.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I wanted each of my books to be very different from the others, each to be special and uncategorizable, and I knew I could only do that a few times before I was in danger of repeating myself.

I like to make the music that I really love. You're supposed to make your favorite music that no one else played, and I'd like to just keep it at that and not really change it at all.

Certain kinds of people will always have an issue with my music. But that's fine; it's OK. I don't want to be the McDonald's of music. I don't want to not turn anyone off. If you were everybody's cup of tea, you'd probably be boring.

The key to me is being different not for the sake of being different, but being the most authentic version of what you do. And definitely it takes a willingness to be different, because there was resistance for me early on, and I feel like that's usually the case when there's a certain paradigm or trend happening, and you step outside of that.

I'm not trying to make beats that are better than somebody else's. I'm trying to make beats that are genuine to me.

You can't be different for different's sake, and this doesn't always work, but you have to separate yourself from the normal read. Of course, it has to be truthful. If it's not truthful, don't waste your time.

Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else. It is hard in this day and age.

The movies I do have to be different in some way. Nothing vanilla will do.

Music should not be a contest, it should be an individual thing that each band is putting out from within themselves.

We don't follow trends; I don't think we even set trends. We just do our own thing. We just do what we love. That's why Arch Enemy sounds like that.

I just want to inspire people to be different.

As an artist, I try not to sound the same as others. Or even as myself.

I dont ever want to do anything mediocre. I hear the music in the charts and I dont mean to be rude, but those people have no soul. Learning from music is like eating a meal - you have to pace yourself. You cant take everything from it all at once. I want to be different, definitely. Im not a one trick pony. Im at least a five-trick pony.

You have to be unique.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

I didn't want to imitate anybody. Any movement I knew, I didn't want to use.

It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. Stop settling for what's good enough and start creating art that matters.

I am an artist who's just tryin' to do something different, and basically not caring about everybody's opinions and wanting to follow what everybody else is doing. At the same time, I know when to be serious, but I know when to joke.

I'm certainly not who people think I am. I always do whatever I want to do, and my films are personal to me.

I've learnt that I've had the best results from just trying to be me, trying to make a movie or TV show I want to see or write a script I want to read, and that's really all I can offer - being authentic.