The 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 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 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’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 COXWhen money and fame happen too late, it’s like pouring kerosene over a fire of self-loathing.
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 COXI was trying to write a song based on a story in a random book of Puerto Rican short stories that I found in a thrift store.
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 COXI don’t like the sound of my own voice. And, for people I don’t know, their impression of me is what they read on the internet, and they’re so far off a lot of the time.
BRADFORD COXI want to build an audience that’s willing to follow us in whichever direction we might choose.
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 COXThey had it at the library and I always thought that was interesting, even when I was into punk and stuff. Just the history of storytelling and the amount of melancholy a lot of old music has.
BRADFORD COXWe didn’t have MTV, and I was desperate for something. You know, you’re young, you want something off the beaten path. And Twin Peaks was like, surrealism on network TV.
BRADFORD COXWhen I go on a nostalgia trip it’s not aesthetic. For me it’s about trying to recapture the smell or the feeling of something that I’ve experienced in the past personally.
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 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 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 COX