Top 55 Julia Holter Quotes

To me, the process of art is very much a process of translation, of borrowing.

When I was a kid, I had a xylophone, and I thought that was the instrument I wanted to play. I didn’t realize it was a toy.

I started writing music as a composer in school, in the classical tradition.

I just always make honest music. I just always kinda do what I wanna do.

Green tea is my main source of caffeine, so I drink it every day.

I am very interested in the human voice and how we use it, especially when we aren’t thinking, like the kind of stuff Robert Ashley was interested in.

I don’t thrive in a school or academic environment, I found out. I thrive better in the world outside the small academy because I find it hard to explain what I’m doing.

I’m not an unhappy person – I’m just an anxious person. It runs in the family.

I don’t think all music that is considered ‘avant-garde’ is bad, but it’s definitely elitist. I hope my music is not that.

I see myself as a songwriter and a poet.

One thing that’s really important to me in my music is mystery.

I think what’s interesting in L.A. is that there’s a lot of variety because L.A. is very spread out. I think there is a lot I don’t know about, to be completely honest. It’s a very mysterious town.

I love ’80s beats; everyone does.

I usually like to hide my vocals behind the music. I don’t like to hide them consciously, but I have a tendency to prefer the vocal at the same level as everything else and put lots of reverb on it.

I did study with Anne Carson briefly in Michigan. She taught there, and that’s where I first encountered her, in her class.

I basically just write stream of consciousness to a certain extent. I let the song kind of go where it wants to go.

I don’t consider myself supremely talented, but I really like to try things and sift through it and see what mess I made.

I really like being home. I like being comfortable, and I’m not a very dramatic person.

The classic problem in a relationship is a person trying to control the other person. People just want to conquer somebody.

I don’t ever like to see paparazzi much, but I have seen them, and I guess anyone who’s seen them knows how scary they are.

If I’m kind of sad or depressed, it doesn’t necessarily help me to write a song about exactly what I’m depressed about.

It’s nice to work with people who know how to mic drums right and how to record properly. But there’s something to be said for doing it yourself.

I don’t fit into a group very well socially. And that might be reflected in my music.

I was pretty scared of the idea as a younger person of being a musician on the road. It didn’t occur to me as a possibility.

No one recognises me on the street, ever.

Saying that something is accessible gives it this implication that people need something, and thinking that we know what people need or want is really unpleasant. I don’t like to think that way, like, predicting what it is that the people want.

I like mantras and repeating things, like in pop music, where you repeat a line over and over again. It’s just so beautiful.

I like working with students a lot and watching some of the amazing stuff they put together.

Most records are usually not united by one specific story, but that seems to be something that I like and that I find easy to do.

I think of each record as different and not having very much in common with what went before or what comes next.

I do develop characters for songs, and I think of everything as storytelling, in a way. But I don’t plan out what they’re going to sound like. I just sing over what I’ve done.

I really love working with Ramona from Nite Jewel. We’ve kind of grown up together.

I’m inspired by nonmusical things a lot, whether it’s a film or a book or whatever.

I do have a big problem with the idea of music as a form of communication unless it’s political – and that’s where it’s tricky because a lot of music is political, even if it’s not overtly so. But my music isn’t that; it’s about a feeling.

I think my music is experimental, playful, challenging, focused, fun. I don’t want it to be thought of as trying to appeal to a certain type of person or being very cerebral.

I usually work in a room which is totally cluttered with my mess, and there’s stuff everywhere, and it’s kind of chaotic because I am a very messy person. I could totally write in a pristine environment, but it would mean I would have to be at someone else’s house.

‘Tragedy’ and ‘Loud City Song’ are both inspired by stories from the past.

I’ve never felt at home anywhere.

‘Betsy’ is one of my favorites because it is the one to which I’ve imposed the least clear narrative. To me, it’s so much more about the feeling – desperation – than any kind of story at all. There’s very little imagery or character development; it’s just about a deep and desperate search for something.

I don’t use the harpsichord because it evokes a past time period: I use it because I like the sound.

I take music very seriously, but it’s important to me that my music is – I don’t know if ‘intuitive’ is the word, but there’s a really important element of something kind of mysterious. It’s not academic or esoteric.

I try to ignore people’s opinions about my music – you don’t want to hold yourself back because of that stuff.

All I ever know is what I want to do next.

There’s definitely been a focus on the literary aspects of my music, and I always get a little cringey because I don’t feel like I’m particularly literary. There’s a sort of academic label that’s put on me that seems inaccurate.

If you’ve ever seen paparazzi go after a celebrity, it’s really freaky.

You can have an Internet presence, but it doesn’t mean anyone has any idea who you are or what you look like. Which is great.

I thought I was gonna get a doctorate in composition or be a composer and be at a university for the rest of my life, mostly because my parents are academics, and that was the logical thing to do.

It’s hard for me to get shows in the U.S. It’s that simple. I don’t know what that means. I think it means there’s not as much support here for my music?

I don’t know how well I work in traditions. I don’t know if it’s just the way I listened to music growing up and never having my foot in one particular world, and just wanting to do my own thing.

I often find that I like the vibe of not having technology around me.

You don’t have to know about ‘Hippolytus’ to listen to ‘Tragedy.’

In high school, I would secretly play Joni Mitchell songs all the time. That’s when I started singing and playing at the same time, and I got really into doing that.

It’s so hard to know where you belong, ever. You have to be yourself and let yourself fall wherever you fall.

I played cello on my early recordings, but that doesn’t mean I’m a cellist, you know?

The Beatles, even Radiohead, all of my favorite stuff I’d play on the piano. But it was all very secret – for me, for fun. I wasn’t going to record myself playing those songs, and it never occurred to me to write a song of my own.