I think the younger kids need to realize there’s this whole forgotten 90s that people don’t really talk about.
BRADFORD COXI think the younger kids need to realize there’s this whole forgotten 90s that people don’t really talk about.
BRADFORD COXFor me, experimenting involves traditionalism.
BRADFORD COXA song like “Walkabout”, it’s totally imitative. The goal of that song was to make people happy, and I’ve never really made a song to make people happy before.
BRADFORD COXThe sober guy is always going to have this air of arrogance or self-righteousness, but it’s not my intention. I just knew that if I drank, I’d have a drinking problem.
BRADFORD COXI’m not the guy in the dress with the blood and the unrequited gay whatever – which, according to my psychiatrist, my gayness is a form of narcissism but you’ll have to ask him about that.
BRADFORD COXI read a lot – surveys of vernacular music. A lot of it is the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, which I’ve loved since I was in high school.
BRADFORD COXYou’re always as a musician trying to shock yourself or create music that’s maybe even too weird for your own taste.
BRADFORD COXYou’re not necessarily listening to the band and thinking about the lead singer, or the story of the group, or the context or the mythology of the group. You’re just listening to the song and whether or not it has a hook.
BRADFORD COXIn reality, I’ve probably got the lowest self-esteem of anybody I know, which has really been rubbed in my face lately in personal situations.
BRADFORD COXYou gotta have friends, and it’s really hard to have friends that don’t operate on the same schedule as you or do the same kind of things you do, because they don’t understand it.
BRADFORD COXI like my solitude, and I’m a strong-willed person; I’m a very hard-to-be-around person sometimes, I guess.
BRADFORD COXI’m real critical of myself. I think a lot of what I’ve done is boring indie rock. I didn’t intend it to be that way, but somehow milk gets added to everything.
BRADFORD COXThe first thing I think I ever played in public, aside from singing in church, would have been – and this is a true story – when I was about nine or 10 years old, I was obsessed with Twin Peaks.
BRADFORD COXI’m not meaning that in a disrespectful way; you go where people want to hear your music. So if that’s where people want to hear me play.
BRADFORD COXWhen I got hit by the car, I became depressed. As a result, I’ve been on antidepressants and I feel like I have no sexuality left. People complain about that side effect, but I love it. I feel outside of society.
BRADFORD COXMy entire education in music was in reading interviews with bands like Stereolab and finding out about Brazilian music or a Romanian composer. You expose yourself to what people you look up to admire.
BRADFORD COX