Top 50 James Murphy Quotes

I have an interest in everything, but I don’t have an interest in starting new careers.

Even in the band I was in when I was a kid, I’d be telling everyone what to do. I’d be leaning over the drums, telling them to tune their guitars, micromanaging.

‘Somebody’s Calling Me’ was written in my sleep, and the original was just the piano and the beat and the singing.

A lot of the time, you compromise., which is fine – it’s part of not being totally insane.

I wouldn’t say I’m a friend of David Byrne, but I guess I’m an acquaintance. I’m obviously an admirer, and we’ve met, but we don’t call and chat about ‘Breaking Bad’ or anything.

I got a phone message from Janet Jackson saying, ‘Hi, I love ‘Losing My Edge’, can you do me something funky and dirty like that?’ I can’t really do off-the-peg stuff, so I never called back.

My personality is based on an anonymity and failure. Failure and anonymity, those are my strengths – superiority from below.

I don’t prepare very well. I’m always sort of wrapped up in what I’m supposed to be doing in the moment, and then I suddenly appear someplace, and I’m really not prepared.

I like clever lyrics, funny lyrics, dumb lyrics. I can never put my finger on what I like about them.

I have a thing about inane lyrics – the world doesn’t need them.

One of my favorite photographers is Ruvan Wijesooriya, who takes most of the LCD photos. His work is incredibly colloquial and raw.

Titles are relatively arbitrary to me; they take on meanings that aren’t really my meanings. ‘Sound Of Silver’ was just, like, I made the studio silver, and I wanted the record to sound ‘more silver.’

I moved to New York in 1989 and went to study at NYU.

I have a very toxic combination of being completely determined, inflexible, controlling and being totally shy, guilty at hurting anyone’s feelings, hypersensitive to other people’s needs – and it’s just paralysing.

The plan is to keep on putting out records until someone shows up and tells us to stop.

Anything that’s resolvable is boring, musically. And if it’s too chaotic, you don’t feel tension; it’s chaos.

LCD live was set up to be an argument about what’s wrong with bands and why bands should be better. I always thought that we were so obviously not a great band, comically not a great band. I was not a great front man.

I always wished I had a more flamboyant streak, but it’s just not what I’m made of.

There’s a difference between a cheap lie and a beautiful lie.

I don’t write off silly pop people at all, because you never know where they’re coming from.

When I want to DJ what I think to be the best-sounding place in the world, I go to this place in Sapporo, Japan, called Precious Hall, which has kind of a custom sound system with a much lower ceiling and a smaller room.

I don’t want to be subsumed into popular culture and played on the radio next to some garbage music.

I never did albums fully at DFA; I always would go someplace else so I wasn’t making a record in my office, basically.

To do a band properly does kind of mean you don’t really get to do anything else.

Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys gave me a present: it’s a boombox with a keyboard and a beatbox in it. You can’t make that up.

If I opened a record store, it wouldn’t be all punk rock and esoterica.

I’ve been to Manchester enough to know it’s a real place. It’s not Factory Records and the Smiths bicycling around. I get it. It’s a modern city.

What we are as a live band is different to what we are on recordings, but they’re both equal versions: they’re both LCD Soundsystem, but in very different ways.

I actually really love people.

I write songs all the time. Sometimes they’re just weird songs I sing while changing a baby, or songs about annoying things that I sing to myself, or to friends while sitting at a bar, or about Christmas or New York.

As things mature – whether they be real estate, rock n’ roll, politics, festivals, radio – there’s an efficiency that develops, and with it, very often, comes some soul-crushing truths.

I don’t drink beer, and I don’t drink at home.

Warhol had resonance because it was high art and low art. And you could argue about it endlessly.

One of the things that I think is special about DJing is creating this atmosphere of collectiveness, as if to say, ‘We’re all in this together.’

The more you are like me, the less interested in my band you are.

I am kind of, by definition, a hipster.

If being in a band was my job, then I would quit. This is not a good job. A good job is in financial management.

I’m generally a very optimistic guy.

I started playing in my first band when I was 12. I like to date myself by saying I was in a New Age band when it wasn’t ironic; it was actually called new wave because it was new.

Making people dance has another function that has nothing to do with art, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. It’s like food – if you’re not eating it, you’re doing something wrong. If they’re not dancing, something is wrong.

To me, the band is like one of my homes, in fact. It’s not like, ‘I’ve got to get out of this band. I’ve got to go home.’ This band is home in a lot of ways. It’s my closest friends; it’s a place where I really feel comfortable and happy.

There’s kind of a limitless amount of things I want to do, and when the path seems to open, that’s when I try to do a thing.

I don’t see myself as necessarily a very creative person. I’m a technical guy.

You can’t be afraid to embarrass yourself sometimes.

I’m not a big songwriter guy. People who are really good singer-songwriters usually left me kind of cold.

I’m really focused and obsessed with writing things that are specific. I don’t like big rock lyrics – I find them infuriating.

I know it seems like LCD Soundsystem sold millions and millions of records, but we didn’t. I’m not a wealthy person.

I miss producing. I hate it when I do it, but I love it.

I’m kind of stunned by hip-hop and R&B’s embrace of what is essentially early-to-mid-Nineties Euro pop.

I’m always surprised by how optimistic and open sometimes people who are very successful are.