Top 44 Phil Elverum Quotes

It even feels absurd to be writing or singing a song at all – in the context of actual death, being alive feels absurd.

I don’t think my music is that big of a deal – my entire life is parenting. The fact that I make records and go off and play shows is a small percentage of my day-to-day existence.

I sometimes think about the life that my daughter will have with no mom. What does it mean to have a ghost mom? Not that I can do anything differently about it. But it’s an inferior version of what we had planned, you know? This was not our top choice.

I can’t bring myself to release an instrumental album because I feel like I want some meat on the bone. Something to chew on, lyrically and content-wise.

I like Copenhagen, just because my shows there have been really good for some reason. Not that I love the city itself, but every time I play there it feels amazing. Pretty nice people there.

I think I’m obsessed with accessibility which is why, when I’m touring, I want to play all ages shows.

I’m open to making any kind of music, or maybe making no music ever again. That’s also an option, always. Who knows what’ll happen.

Profound thoughts and profound experiences get revealed to be tricks that we play on ourselves, and poetry gets revealed to be just, like, some dumb words that somebody put in an interesting order.

I reach out. I ask for help. I tell my story.

I’m mostly fine with anyone using my music for whatever. Everything’s just compost that gets reused.

I always like to play in beautiful cathedrals, when I can somehow get access to do a punk show there.

For awhile the only thing people were talking to me about my music, that’s all they ever said: ‘You must be a nature lover. Are you camping all the time?’

I am not satisfied with the ending of ‘Mount Eerie’ the album, so maybe by calling myself that, I am attempting to elaborate on the ending.

I listen to all kinds of music and sometimes I try to do something that’s referential to an era or a genre, but it still sounds like me.

Music is only good sometimes.

I am so thirsty to do my projects whenever I have a spare moment.

My daughter is like a tether back to the functional world, and I’m aware of how helpful that is.

There are a lot of names on the credits of ‘The Glow Pt. 2,’ but most of those people are just on one half of one song or something.

Twitter is so stupid. I mean, it sucks!

I used to have a musical group with a girlfriend called The Thunderclouds. It was like a Beach Boys cover band. And we would just figure out Beach Boy songs – break ’em into two-part harmonies. And, you know, we played a couple of shows around Olympia. It was very fun.

Nirvana was happening when I was 14, kind of the perfect age. Growing up in Anacortes, Washington, it was close enough to Seattle that it seemed like a local thing.

If I wanted to make big, bombastic, distorted, echo-y, trippy music, the atmospheric stuff, a studio is nice. But it’s nice to know that it’s not necessary.

My exposure to independent music was via Nirvana and grunge so I’d never gotten into punk. I don’t really like that music of Crass, but I love the band, and I love their way, and their presentation.

It feels weird to play songs that I don’t really… feel any more.

I need some time to write songs and work on my thing, but I’m just living my life and doing family stuff and letting inspiration come when it comes. But I also don’t feel a desperate need to keep pushing myself into people’s faces to stay cool and relevant.

People used to assume I was a serious/sad person because of my music for some reason.

I like the experience being in the audience and being overwhelmed by sound, like thick, oppressive loud sound and distortion.

I got into Nirvana, and it was my sort of awakening into the idea that music could be like rough and crazy and local. And so I started to realize that there were bands playing in my town, Anacortes.

I’m singing these songs about death and stuff. I see somebody who’s, like, in their sixties or seventies at the show, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure. Fair enough.’

Comedy is deep and wild and I am excited about the mysteries within.

I feel like I spend most of my time in a state of writer’s block! When things do come out, they come out quickly.

I like a bass drum. A big one.

There are some people that are trying to cure death, this tech immortality… That seems mentally ill.

My first band was called Nubert Circus, a very embarrassing, dumb name. It means nothing. We were kind of grunge. I would say we were more funny punk, a lot of songs about food and stuff like that.

Life here (in the Pacific Northwest, not in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland or the chain of buildings connecting them but in the rest of the place, out west and east from the north-south I-5 river) can sometimes feel like a half-dream, half-myth.

In 2002 I did a big tour of Europe, by train, by myself, on foot, all the time walking from train station to the venue, in a weird town, in a weird country. I’d brought an acoustic guitar with me but it got broken somehow in transit.

It’s nice to have a band that can adapt to whatever show we’re in, so we can play on a big stage or a house show.

It’s a beautiful idea to focus on how everything is temporary and always in flux. It may feel bad now, but it will feel good later, and vice versa. To write about those things brings this satisfying feeling as a creative person.

I don’t get to make many choices in my life as a single parent.

I don’t want to return to places and sing the same songs a second time.

I’ve sort of accidentally put myself in this position where I opened up the story of my life, and of course people want to reciprocate and open up to me. I’m OK at it, I don’t make people feel worse, but it’s strange to find myself in this role, all of a sudden, that I never would have pursued.

Clear Moon’ is more… clear I guess! It’s more round-sounding and it’s slightly gentler. ‘Ocean Roar’ is more challenging and weird and darker and heavier – the idea was for it to feel like a thick fog laying on your head, versus a clear sky with the moon in it.

Somebody from Pitchfork Festival wanted me to have a Microphones reunion. It’s a joke. It’s just me.

The universe is chaotic and meaningless, and it’s good to laugh about it. That’s my stance on life, actually. Some people go through life grinding their teeth, suffering and banging their head against the wall. I’m glad that’s not the reaction that occurs in me.