Thurston Moore Quotations

A lot of the lyrical ideas do have a lot of meaning in a way, although it is somewhat abstracted.

We never notate our music, so you can try to replicate it, but you don't really have it.

It's hard for bands to stick it out because people grow up, and it never really pays off. If you're looking for some sort of payoff, it's not gonna happen

I have to reign myself in a lot.

Whenever I can afford to do something, I do it

I don't really care about, Oh I really have to sell these things.

I certainly don't sit around in the morning making pancakes listening to Whitehouse or anything.

We're playing all these weird festivals, usually outdoors.

It's American Alternative radio stations that bug me. We're considered Alternative, but don't expect us to be played next to Blink 182 and Offspring. We're hardly of that generation.

I was surrounded by nature and trying to come to terms with this blissful nature versus the inhumane mentality of war. People were being deluded by someone using the word peace

We're like old people now playing music. I'm so glad we stuck it out because it's a lot better. I used to feel kind of anxious. Now our apprenticeship is over.

Kids think of us as being totally over the hill.

Every now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music.

Anyone who grows up with parents who are very influential, there are cases where people run away from that if they have parents who are really lame.

Buddhism has become a socially recognized religious philosophy for Americans, whereas it used to be considered an exotic religion.

I grew up in the early '70s in New England.

No one really gets rich doing this. A couple people do, Black Sabbath does. We don't sell any records anymore.

I never go back and listen to the recorded document. The thrill comes when the balance can be attained. Everyone in the room can have a shared, communal rock experience.

I really want to do a book on the history of the no-wave music scene in New York, how it extended out and formed lots of other things. It was such a great visual culture.

Traditional songwriting, to us, is where the experimental nature comes in. We're all involved with so much outside activity with really hardcore, experimental music-making.

Each member does whatever they want with the song and it totally changes it from whatever idea I hear around it. It turns it into a Sonic Youth song and completely away from it being a solo song.

I wanted to hear the songs in the way that I had written them, which was very basic. All I wanted was drums and another guitar, and I was just going to sing

Lyric writing is an interesting process in Sonic Youth. There's three people writing now, and we've all had a lot of interest and involvement with expression through words

Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band. because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry

The band has a liberal philosophy - that's sort of a given.

With these reissues, listening to these tapes, it seemed very crude to me. There's no way I'd ever want to play like that again.

We've never had a gold record. We make more money from being active, working, publishing, we have a great catalog. We never really had any hits.

I find it discouraging to see these bands taking this really simplistic element from Nirvana and employing it to their own success.

Recording tends to restrict too much experimentation, 'cause when you're making a record it's a part of you, for that time it's your whole fabric.

We're all very sensitive that Jim has the shortest history with the band. He wants to be somewhat of a free agent. I'm just going to let time dictate how Jim's future evolves.

We had wanted to a fairly large theater tour. We're doing Lollapalooza. You play to 20 times as many people as you'd ever be playing to.

When we tour the songs, they tend to get more and more expansive, and actually evolve over time until they are something quite different.

Nova Scotia College contacted us; it was really early on... they asked if we wanted to do a symposium. We just sat around and talked to some students.

My mind is turning into kind of a fine gelatinous ball of pepper

I never do releases to try and make or break some contemporary band.

We always try to encourage more songs sung by Kim, because there are always requests for it. I certainly don't want to ball hog all the singing.

So lots of respect for all you boys and girls out there who tab out songs like all the time. You bring rock and roll music closer to the people. Gratefully yours

Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it

Hits are for squares.

People... of the universe! Tonight... is the night.. when the skies will open, and spray forth a divine hand with pointed finger! And it will say... everybody... you're not just a duck... YOU ARE HUMAN! YOU ARE HUMAAAAN!!!

Tonight I am going to defecate on stage because I think that is the only way to express the nature of my soul according to rock and roll.

Rock'n'roll saved my soul.

People see rock and roll as, as youth culture, and when youth culture becomes monopolised by big business, what are the youth to do? Do you, do you have any idea? I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture.

DEVO was like the punk band that non Punk America saw as Punk and so when people who were really into Punk rock would be walking around on the streets the jocks who learned about Punk through Devo would roll down their windows and yell at the Punks: 'HEY, DEVO!!'