In the broad spectrum of the arts, two worlds rarely overlap – the literary world and the world of rock music.
I was really sick of bands just ignoring the audience as a posture in rock music. And I think we fed off each other in terms of trying to engage the audience, not in a hammy way, but actually trying to be aware of the space that you are playing in and trying to connect in some way through the music.
For more than 15 years, Mogwai has built a reputation on its monstrous ambitions for rock music.
I’ll tell you sort of an odd story: My music taste changed on 9/11. And it’s very strange. I actually intellectually find this very curious. But on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded. And country music collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me.
Anthemic rock music is inherently fascist – anything intended to move huge masses of people is politically offensive to me.
I’d say, for my freshman year in college, I was doing everything in my power to hide the fact that I had ever had any association with the Paul Green School of Rock Music because it was like this bruise. It was such a sore subject.
Rock music is electronic music, dependent entirely on electronic circuitry and amplification.
Definitely dub is in my body forever. I think I hear everything through a dub filter. Even when I play rock music, I play through a dub filter.
I saw the Internet as being something which would allow power mongers to control us, and that we would willingly go to that if it promised us salvation – if it promised to show us who we were and let us find ourselves as we had, uniquely in our generation, through rock music.
America is tough for rock music. Rock n’ roll used to be the main music for the youth, and it’s not so much anymore. It’s hip-hop and stuff.
I don’t listen to a ton of rock music.
I love rock music, dance music, so it depends on my mood. But I mainly listen to dance music before going out on court.
I’m John Lee Hooker in the sense that he was a blues man and he played blues his whole life. I’m a rock guy and I’m going to play rock music my whole life.
For a composer of concert music, 40 is actually very young. But for a rock musician, 40 is almost past due, where you think of rock music as really part of more youth-oriented culture.
I always wanted to get into rock music so I could cover up my real personality, change my voice, and create a false self to hide behind.
I didn’t want to box myself into writing just rock music because you can try to force it into moments that don’t want it.
