Top 25 James Vincent McMorrow Quotes

I grew up in a place called Malahide, which is by the water and is beautifully quiet, leafy, and part serene.

I’m very ambitious, musically – I want to create great things, not mediocre work.

I have some vivid memories of walking around as a child with a cassette tape.

I don’t know if I’m attention deficit, but I certainly am easily distracted by other things.

Food in Dublin has gotten immeasurably better than it was. When I was a kid, there weren’t a lot of options. Now you’re overwhelmed with options.

I was never a ‘sit down with a notepad and write lyrics’ kind of person.

I don’t know about folk music. I play guitar, so there’s a feeling I make folk music.

I think it’s safe to say that if you talk to anybody in Ireland, they’ll have a passing knowledge of the guitar. It was something that I couldn’t get away from when I was younger: guitars played in shops and parties, just everywhere.

More often than not, changes had to be made in order for a song to make sense, and by the end of it, it would just be something different. Lyrically, I am usually fairly confused until something is finished, and then it makes perfect sense to me.

I’m learning on the guitar all the time.

I never was the front man in any bands I played in when I was in college, and I always learned music by myself at home.

All the really good guitar players – Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or even Bert Jansch or John Martin – I love all those people. But I didn’t start out thinking that I would be a guitar player. In the beginning, I played the guitar so I could sing. I mainly concentrated on my voice.

You get one chance to make an impression, and coasting through is a disservice.

I like working by myself.

My first record was made in Termonfeckin, which is a small town on the north-east coast of Ireland. I had been in London, but it didn’t click. So, at home, I didn’t think about making something, just whether something could be made. There was no grand plan.

I didn’t really learn how to play guitar until I was in college.

I have no interest in making music that’s built for an antique shop.

I just essentially stayed at home for three years and just learned to play as many instruments as I could and listened to as many singers as I could. Like, when I got to about 19/20, I started listening to singers. I normally just listened to bands. Now I listen to a lot of old singers, not a lot of new stuff.

I’ve traveled quite a lot and become a coffee nut.

With music, it feels natural that, in my head, I can pull things apart and then put them back together very quickly.

When I first saw Drake, I thought I was never going to like him based on the person that I saw on T.V. He’s just so full on, and he’s got the ladies’ man thing, which isn’t necessarily something that would resonate with me.

The idea of trying to predict what people will or won’t respond to is risky.

You play a couple of shows, and these label guys come – and they leave halfway through a show. Then the phone calls just stop. And your heart is broken.

My favorite records are not easy – they’re not records that reveal everything to you the first time out.

I heard of this Texas studio. The owner, Tony Rancich, wanted to fly us out for the day to see the studio. I booked it the next day. He’s that rare guy that is in it purely for the love of it.