Bryce Dessner Quotes

You should play with real musicians; the best music comes from real people interacting with each other.

I love music with my soul, but I'm also a student of it, so it's very important to me to earn the respect of my peers, my fellow musicians and producers.

Our job is just to keep making great-sounding music and great performances.

Nothing means more to me than making the best music and me getting better as a writer and producer... I want you to know I work really hard. The bar is really high.

American musicians are very giving - they have the highest standard in the world - but they are also very demanding in their conditions.

I just like to do covers, every once in a while. If someone pays me to go into the studio, I'll do it.

And the input that we always got from Deadheads, at the moment of making the music, was always a factor.

I love all Yes music and love to play it live, but I'm most interested in making new music with Yes.

Whoever hired me might've just heard 'Refugee.' Well, I'm not the secret to 'Refugee.' The secret to 'Refugee' is the song. But if somebody really good calls me up to play on something because they like the way I played on 'Refugee,' then I wind up playing on another really good song.

What people really should be able to be confident in is that the standards of music- making that classically trained musicians present is elite, it is the best and all of us as artists should be committed to that.

I don't take breaks, man. In the past, I used to spend my free time getting in trouble, and now I spend it working on my music. If I'm not playing drums with my cover band, Chevy Metal, I'm working on songs for myself.

My approach is to be part of a band that makes music, not hit songs.

I'd always been on the giving end of music and creating.

Sometimes I don't go into the studio for quite a while because I haven't found enough good songs. They have to have a certain caliber and connect with me because I'm going to be playing them for the rest of my life. I start off with a circle of friends whose songs I love anyway.

If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.

I've always sung in choirs and acapella groups, but when I was in college, I finally started writing songs and playing with a band, and that ignited a desire to do it full time and pour everything I had into it.

A lot of people may not know how competitive it is to play classical music, because when you think about it, the music that you're playing is music that's been here for years. And all you're trying to do is improve upon it when you play.

Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.

I began both auditioning with Pearl Jam and recording for Eleven. In the fall of 1994, I joined Pearl Jam.

I'm very lucky to work in so many different arenas of the entertainment industry and I do enjoy them all, but making music - original music - in the studio or live onstage is definitely my favorite thing to do.

I still do a lot of shows with Brian Koonin, but we haven't had a full band lately.

I just to put out the best records I can and perform the best I can.

But I love singing, and I've been singing backup for friends' bands.

I pride myself on working with great musicians.

Your band members? Your band members don't want to be tied to a machine. They want to be playing. That's what the Beatles did. And the Beatles' stuff is timeless. That's what I would suggest. Just get back to sweating, playing hard, hammering, and having a blast.