There was something in me, even leaving fifth grade, that hit me and said, “I have to get out of here. I don’t know where, and I don’t know what else I can do but I’m really not going to end up like any of these people.”
BABATUNDE ADEBIMPEMost of the bands that I really like no longer exist. That might just be because I’m in my thirties or whatever. But I also think it’s the rare band that doesn’t, like, turn into something else.
More Babatunde Adebimpe Quotes
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Touring is really a weird social experiment, even though everyone thinks it’s a party every day.
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One second you’re having the time of your life in front of all these people, and then you come backstage to the exact opposite – there’s only lukewarm carrots back there.
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No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand.
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Hearing that [David] Bowie passed was like you don’t really believe it. It’s as if the sky shifted a little bit, to remind you it was there.
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The feeling of being halfway through a show and just realizing that there’s nothing you can do to save it – it’s a horrible feeling.
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A lot of people have reunion things, but I think bands are supposed to break up.
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I feel like now if you’re going to start a band you have to have an Instagram full of yourself looking a certain way, lined up like five dudes in mugshot alley, hanging out by the bridge or up against the wall, or “We’re in a library for some reason!”
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If you push hard enough you can change. You can take everything you know and round it up, turn it into something else, and keep turning things into something else.
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When I’m in the mode of feeling positive about love, I don’t really feel the need to mark it down in song. In fact, I know what that song would sound like, and I would not subject anybody to that.
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I feel like people just let each other live a little more in New York.
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There are a lot of spikes that can happen when what you’re doing starts to get attention or people start to talk about it. They can just kind of really do a number on your reasons for making music.
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My father was a psychiatrist and a social worker but he was a very talented painter and musician and writer on the side.
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I was living in a loft with Dave Sitek – this loft full of people just working on their stuff. Some were painting, some were writing. Any plans you had were kind of like a plan for the next two months.
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The cynicism doesn’t come across in the final; it can be taken as a very sincere plea for someone to not go away.
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You have to be a really talented writer if you’re trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don’t have the focus to do that, really.
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