Top Michael Gira Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Michael Gira Biography

Michael Rolfe Gira (/dʒəˈrɑː/; born February 19, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, author and artist. He is the main force behind the New York City musical group Swans and fronted Angels of Light. He is also the founder of Young God Records.

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Michael Gira Quotes

I'm the band leader. That's not to say that the other people are my minions - they all put in a tremendous amount of personality, and push the music in ways I would never expect.

Expect, Leader, People, Personality, Tremendous

I'm always trying to push myself into unfamiliar places with the music, sometimes without success, I have to admit. But I'd rather be there than relying on a style that people recognize and want to follow.

Always Trying, People, Relying, Style, Success

I have my own record company. I have to answer to God, basically. I'm not young, so I want to make the best possible work I can before I exit.

Answers, Basically, Record, Records, Want, Work

I never could read Foucault. I find philosophy tedious. All of my knowledge comes from reading novels and some history. I read Being and Nothingness and realized that I remembered absolutely nothing when I finished it. I used to go to the library every day and read every day for eight hours. I’d dropped out of high school and had to teach myself. I read Sartre without any background. I just forced myself and I learned nothing.

Day, Dropped, History, Philosophy, Reading, School

When I drink a Glass of water, it's thick and crawling with life. My mouth leads to the interior of my body - a caldron of disease, germs, and perversions of biology. I don't exist individually. I'm made of millions of living creatures, eating each other, decomposing, eating each other.

Creatures, Disease, Germs, Glasses, Living, Water

When I walk around New York now, there are so many ghosts. I find it very uncomfortable. There were many hard years, and I never really achieved any kind of comfortable financial success, so I just associate it with struggle. When I had a chance to get out, I was elated.

Ghosts, Kind, New York, Struggle, Uncomfortable, Years

Maybe in the future I'll put out someone's one-off project, but generally I don't have time.

Future, Generally, Maybe, Project, Projects, Time

Nina Simone was an entertainer. Bob Dylan was an entertainer. Anyone that can occupy a piece of music and make the air catch on fire at that moment is a true entertainer. That's how I view it. That's what I was meant to do. I love doing it. That's why I'm on earth.

Air, Bob, Fire, Nina, Views

You make your work and you can't ask for approval when you're doing it. Otherwise, it's going to be untruthful in some way.

Approval, Ask, Asks, Untruthful, Way

When I first started doing the quieter, more acoustic material in Swans, there was a lot of derision and outright hatred from the audience and press, just as in the early days of Swans when we were rejected outright because of the bludgeoning, single-minded violence of the music.

Audience, Days, Derision, Hatred, Swans, Violence

I really wanted to get to the animal core of rock music and eliminate anything that wasn't necessary.

Animal, Rocks, Rock Music, Rock, Core, Eliminate

Playing an old record doesn't interest me at all. It's exactly the opposite of what I want to do.

Old, Opposite, Opposites, Playing, Records, Want

I am definitely less and less interested in music made by people that exist today, people that are living. I just see them as part of the whole stupid process of the music business, desperate (even if they feign indifference) to get noticed, trying to "make it" in the stinking music business, to become "famous" etc, and it disgusts me.

Make, People, Stinking, Stupid, Trying, Whole

I'm a producer in the old-school way - not just some slacker working on Pro Tools.

School, Tools, Way, Slacker, Producer, Pro

The sexuality of children - there's a lot friction there. That tension interests me a lot.

Children, Friction, Sexuality, Tension

I wanted to challenge myself and move into something new. I felt that using the name Swans and the sonic attitude that that engenders was what I needed to move forward musically, and it's led to lots of new things.

Attitude, Felt, Lots, Moving, Swans

You find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.

Sound, Way, Push Yourself, Repetition, Same

I went to art school and never thought I'd be a musician, but then punk rock came along in the late 70s and kind of ruined my life. So I quit art school to get involved in music and I've been doing it ever since.

Art, Involved, Kind, Life, Rocks, School

I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound. But I can't find myself in a situation where our band Swans is doing typical chord progressions - it just seems cliché to me. Even changing chords sounds like a cliché sometimes, though it happens occasionally in our music. But you find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.

Morphs, Progression, Push Yourself, Repetition, Same, Sometimes

I never wrote poetry, just prose. I don't really consider songwriting a form of poetry either. The words are important, of course, but they're dependent on the music.

Important, Form, Songwriting, Prose, Dependent

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