Liking interesting things doesn’t make you interesting.
BEN GIBBARDThe story of our band is that we were this relentless touring band in those early years. We were leaving day jobs and going off on the road and having fun and seeing the country for the first time.
More Ben Gibbard Quotes
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I can remember how I sang – a little more nasal-y back then. Listening to those old recordings is like seeing a photograph of yourself from 10 years ago. You’re wearing what you thought looked cool at the time. You had your hair styled the particular way you thought looked cool.
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If there is one thing I think I have accomplished, it’s that I always thought of myself as a very literal songwriter, and as I look at some of those older records.
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As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.
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I don’t spend my time perusing message boards to find out what people think about me or if people think my songs are good or if people love that lyric or this or that. I just want to be happy with it myself – and if other people like it, that’s great.
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I feel like on those older records there are a lot of attempts at clever turns of phrase.
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I’m a war of head versus heart, it’s always this way. My head is weak, my heart always speaks, before I know what it will say.
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We had friends who had a hit single on the radio and sold 500,000 records, and then they couldn’t get arrested a year later.
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Now that we have the resources, we’re like, “Oh wow, a nice studio is pretty nice! They do have nice outboards here. It’s actually a pretty good place.” It’s funny how much changes so quickly.
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The late ’90s were a really bad time for people trying to be rock stars, you know what I mean? It seemed like everyone was a one-hit wonder on the radio.
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You remember that stuff and laugh about it now. You don’t feel it the way you did back then when you were so scared and nervous and tired and hungry.
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And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time.
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We had cut ourselves free from the security of day-job life. The goals became primarily financial, at least for a while. That was the roughest time we had ever had as a band, because that was the first moment we realized that this was for real.
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I like writing on piano and a computer, and a lot of ‘Plans’ came out of samples and vocal lines.
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I just rediscovered my guitar.
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Hall & Oates is one of the few musical groups as satisfying now as it was back then. There’s something incredibly musically satisfying about their songs. Nothing has diminished my love for them.
BEN GIBBARD