Jenny Lewis Quotes

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

I have to be my own artist. I need the world to know who I am, especially for music. When it comes to acting, that is a whole other story. I have no complaints; that's a team effort. It's not just me, it's everyone. But when it comes to music, it is solo; that's all me.

When you make a solo record, it's you. It's your name. It has to be the right songs for how you feel. It just took me a really long time to get to a place where I felt comfortable with the material and the recording.

I don't do any art to please any people.

I want to release music that I like and feel comfortable with.

I love writing songs, but I don't want to write the songs everyone else is asking me to write.

I want to make music that I like; not something that I have to make because I think it's going to sell.

Sometimes I feel like I'm taking on a role when I'm writing a song, and it doesn't always have to be true. I'm not sitting in my room crying with my guitar, writing a slow solo about a depressing breakup; that's not me.

I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else's vision of me.

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

I love music because you can create a world through your records. I have total control over what I do and what I wear. It's like my own world out of my imagination rather than someone giving me lines.

I make the kind of music I like.

My work is literally my voice.

An album is such a personal thing. It's something I always wanted to do. It's me doing me, singing as me.

You get a lot of who you are as a musician across through the music you write. If you're writing your own music, then it's important to be really honest.

What is the art world? I never really understood. I started doing this stuff to do what I want to do. Not to be this or that.

I've been in the studio experimenting on making a CD of my own. I'm trying out different producers, styles, sounds. With music, as opposed to acting, you are not playing a character. You are showing people who you are. I really want to have my spirit in it.

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

I enjoy making solo albums because over the years it's evolved into more of a genuine personal expression of story-telling and day dreams, and I work in a way that has more control.

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

I don't wanna get into that space where a lot of guys now, their solo album is like eight or 10 songs with other people, you don't get an idea of who this guy is. I just wasn't interested in that.

When I work on my own stuff - and I think this is true for anybody - but when you work on something that you just completely own, you are trying to stay as true to your own storytelling voice as you can.

I don't have to compete in the charts. I can just be myself as a musician, a songwriter and play with the musicians that I really love.

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.