Words matter. These are the best Kevin Morby Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
On my first European solo tour, I was selling maybe 50 tickets a city until I showed up in Paris and heard the show was already at 150 tickets, which, at the time, really blew my mind and took me by complete surprise.
One of my favorite movie characters is Mother Sister from Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing.’ It is such a beautiful name, and she is such a beautiful character, Mother Sister, the all-seeing eye over the block.
‘Reign’ is probably the oldest one on the record. I wrote that when I was 19. ‘The Dead They Don’t Come Back,’ which is the last song on the album, I wrote when I was 20, and ‘Harlem River’ I just wrote last year. It spans from 2007 to 2012.
I had a very easy middle class upbringing and never had to worry about anything. But my parents came from nothing and from broken homes, and their stories were always very interesting.
I had a lot of jobs in New York. I worked in a cafe, and I did bike delivery, and I was a mover. And I babysat, which was really cool in some cases and really insane in others.
I love Baltimore. It is a city with a giant heart and has remained one of my favorite places to keep returning to on tour. It is unique and beautiful, and you can’t mistake it for anywhere else in the world – Baltimore is one hundred percent Baltimore.
I’m a really big Fiona Apple fan, and more times than not, when I put her on in the car, people are surprised. I think they associate her less as a songwriter and more as a ’90s MTV generation artist.
‘Rock Bottom Riser’ by Smog – I was just in Europe, and my jet lag never really went away. I wasn’t sleeping very much. Then one night, my girlfriend saw a Bill Callahan show in L.A. and took a video of that song and sent it to me. I was just listening to it over and over – it was comforting.
You’re at LaGuardia, and you get in a cab, and it’s taking you into Brooklyn, and you’re on the BQE, and you can see the skyline, the whole skyline, and it’s so beautiful.
On ‘City Music’, I wanted there to be grit, and I wanted it to be loose, and I wanted there to be mistakes.
I feel like ‘Harlem River’ was me putting one foot out the door of New York, and ‘Still Life’ is between Point A and Point B. It’s the grey area.
I write all the time, and I write a lot of songs, but before I started putting out records, those songs always just ended up on stuff that I did with The Babies.
‘Singing Saw’ was exactly seeing through my eyes; ‘City Music’ let me write from somebody else’s perspective, somebody living in New York.
My dad grew up in western Nebraska. I’d visit all the time as a kid, and it’s very much like the Wild West. It felt to me like a cowboy movie. Stuff like that made me become this dreamer at a young age.
‘Harlem River’ is about the Harlem River in uptown Manhattan. I don’t know much to say about it. I came upon that river a couple of years ago. I was doing a walk the length of Manhattan, from the top to the bottom, and I had never seen that river before.
I wanted to write a song called ‘#1234’ that would act as a homage to The Ramones.
As far as dream venues, I’ve played all the venues I’d love to play.
Paris has always shown a lot of love towards my music, and I am very grateful.
I just love the idea of never seeing a city before and seeing the glow in the distance, and it just looking frightening, like you’re driving into a fire.
I’m very impressionable: I get very taken away by stories and certain feelings. With writing, sometimes I want to feel like a character.
I remember my mom telling me that when John Belushi died, my dad cried. I remember thinking that was strange as a child, but today, I kind of get it.
‘Reign’ – and this might sound cheesy, but it’s a dream I had. I dreamt everything that happened in that song, woke up, and wrote the song.