Latest Carrie Brownstein Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• People give the words life through their own adoration or relationship to the work, and that's true of everything. You can't divorce critical or fan reaction. Once it exists, you forget that the words are arbitrary, or you start to remove value.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Divorce, People, Giving

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think when you're writing from your own life, it's hard because you realize that people have their own assessment of how they look, and they don't know how you will describe them.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• You'd hope that no writing about music could supersede the music itself. But I do think that blogs mirror the way that we are listening. It comes at you fast and it's timely and then five minutes later we're on to something else. It caters to our desire for instant gratification. And I think blogs also have fluidity that's exciting. You have a lot of real enthusiastic music fans for the most part that are writing sometimes for a large audience, and I think certain blogs have a little too much power over what someone likes or doesn't like.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Real, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• If I have a strong dislike for something, obviously that garners an equal amount of derision, towards me from the audience. And that's fine, as long as it's within the bounds of decency and isn't too personal in the vitriol. That's what makes the blog interesting, and that's what makes reading it interesting and that's what makes writing interesting. You don't want everyone to agree.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Strong, Reading, Writing

  "15 Minutes With Carrie Brownstein". Interview With Nikki Gloudeman, www.motherjones.com. March 22, 2010.

• The school systems at my childhood had enough money or enough parent involvement that they felt like learning music and songs, and exploring the whole pop or classical canon, were just as important as algebra or biology. Music is such a visceral and tactile experience for a kid, and to just replace that with video games or something that doesn't have the same sort of physical impact would definitely be a poor choice, and have a negative impact.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Song, School, Kids

• If your whole world of a band or music is taking place in a digital realm or on technological devices, it's all mediated through those things. That takes away from the experiential and sensual nature of music. That's a lot less exciting for me to think about. It's not my ideal way of living with music.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Thinking, Sensual, World

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• I've honestly always been an overly analytical, highly observant person. I was playing music but thinking about it at same time, which was sort of exhausting. Aside from the pain of writing - you're not really in a gang like you are in band, it's a little bit lonelier - I think it was always something that I'd wanted to do. So the transition wasn't abrupt or painful.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Pain, Writing, Thinking

  "15 Minutes With Carrie Brownstein". Interview With Nikki Gloudeman, www.motherjones.com. March 22, 2010.

• I've always been a fan first and foremost - obsessing over bands and seeking out bands, and spending hours and hours listening. When I played music, the scope of my fandom became more myopic; I was focusing on the bands we were touring with, or the bands on the label. And you're always positing yourself in relation to other bands. Since I haven't been playing, I feel a little less cynical. I'm able to seek out music and approach it strictly as a fan.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Cynical, Listening, Hours

  "15 Minutes With Carrie Brownstein". Interview With Nikki Gloudeman, www.motherjones.com. March 22, 2010.

• When I'm cynical, I seek out bands that are fully participating and trying to push something forward. Or I can just start playing music again - which is happening with a new project. But I think it's always a challenge to overcome cynicism and not get bogged down by a sense of nostalgia. That can be such a stifling feeling.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Thinking, Cynical, Challenges

  "15 Minutes With Carrie Brownstein". Interview With Nikki Gloudeman, www.motherjones.com. March 22, 2010.

• I don't think you need to sound like from where you're from. But I think there is something magical and powerful about encompassing something fully and singularly.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Powerful, Thinking

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Florida is such an unlikely place for a band, unless you're an emo or hardcore band. In terms of the touring route, or even the way the geography works in terms of bands and communities, Florida's always been this appendage that you either cut it off and dismiss it, or you somehow include it in your scope.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Emo, Cutting, Community

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• I think a lot of the intention of bands, especially in the last year, is to spread themselves out geographically and borrow from different cultures and different sounds, and to be eclectic. And that's great in terms of dynamics, but it also tends to not have that torpedo and fire running through it. If you're spreading yourself out across the globe, you're also not emphasizing a singular point, which I think great rock music has always done.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Running, Thinking, Different

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• There was this kind of wackiness that was really embraced and put on a pedestal. It was before the millennium. We were envisioning a future that was mostly idealistic. I think that came crashing down a little bit in 9/11, or a lot. There is something about Portland that does seem to still exist in this total idealistic world and total idealistic mind frame, and I think that's what Dream of the '90s is talking about.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Dream, Thinking, Mind

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• We brainstorm an idea and then we do flesh it out a little bit - we come up with a script, mostly to have beats and a sense of a story and a narrative arc. Often when we get into the space and onto the location, that changes and something we discover in the moment becomes the moment, becomes the story, becomes the character.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Character, Moments

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't think I would live outside of the Northwest. I think the quality of life in Portland is really good. People move from intense, high-powered jobs, and move to Portland, work half as much and live twice as good. They can afford bigger houses, or they can actually afford to buy a house, they can work the minimal amount and still get by. I think there's a really strong sense of community there. It's beautiful.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Beautiful, Strong, Moving

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think that the intentions are genuine in the search for authenticity, but it can tip over into absurdity so quickly. I just start to wonder, like, what authenticity even is, and whether we can even start to define it in such a globalized world.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Thinking, World, Wonder

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think we as people struggle for what is meaningful in our lives, and I think that modern, contemporary life is as easy as it's ever been, for many, many people, and the amount of physical exertion, for most people, is less than it's ever been. I think that there is something about the ritual of making things more difficult that people find meaning in.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Meaningful, Struggle, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I grew up outside of Seattle, and have lived here my whole life, and I think that there is a culture of questioning, and guilt. Almost an "anti-ambition." Like, an awareness, and then a subsequent guilt. But sometimes that progressive, liberal guilt is really obnoxious, too - in some ways, I think it's better to just own it. It's weird, that actually, the acknowledgement of privilege or the enactment of guilt can be as obnoxious as anything else. It's a never-ending rabbit hole. We're really in a rabbit hole right now, with this conversation. We're just spiraling down into the void.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Thinking, Guilt, Culture

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I've noticed that as someone who has done music and creative things in Washington state and Portland, to kind of toot your own horn, or admit, "I'm going for it. I'm hustling," is not exactly the norm. Which is weird, because you go to New York, or LA, or anywhere else, you've got to be gunning for it - and you should be - you're part of a fast-moving stream of other people who are really ambitious. People move here to work less. So, to say that you're hustling all the time, and going for it, is kind of a little bit against the grain here.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Moving, People, Creative

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Living in Portland, which is a predominantly white city, the privilege and the luxury to be able to obsess over a certain kind of minutia, that I think, if you did not have that privilege, would never be bothersome. When people are worried about whether "local" means 100 miles, or 50 miles, or 10 miles from a grocery store, I just think, "Wow. What a privilege it is to have that as a major concern in your life." As opposed to, "Can we afford food tonight?" Sometimes I'm just shocked at what becomes concerning in these kind of communities.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Mean, Thinking, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The enemy of any artistic statement is to create something that no one cares about, in the sense they have no opinion either way.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Enemy, Care, Opinion

  Source: www.avclub.com

• It wasn't just like, "I want to make a record that sounds like classic rock" at all. It was more like, "I want to make a record that is a little more unsettling and maybe isn't as easily understood now." That just seemed more important, like, for me to make as an artist, than it was to make something to make people feel safe right away.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Artist, People, Important

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I guess the role of art is to make something that is ambiguous and complex.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Art, Ambiguous, Art Is

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think one of the reasons that we are able to actually keep making music that we want to make, and that we're inspired by, is because there is a certain amount of instability constantly, and I think that mirrors the instability of any given life.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Thinking, Inspired, Reason

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I've never been in another kind of midlife crisis. I don't know what it feels like when you're through that, but I definitely feel that changing a few things, like being on a different label and having things kind of settle back into a sense of normality, helps to feel grounded.

  Carrie Brownstein

  Different, Helping, Kind

  Source: www.avclub.com