Latest DJ Shadow Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Incidentally, the very, very first review that James Lavelle and I saw of Endtroducing was very negative! It was in The Wire, and the context of the review was that, you know, Mo'Wax was so far behind Ninja Tune. Heheheh. And people wonder why there was this sense of a feud between labels! We just kind of looked at each other and we were like, 'Oh, well, let the floodgates open!' But, not to be facile, that was literally the last bad review I ever saw for that album.

  DJ Shadow

  People, Wire, Negative

  Source: thequietus.com

• Another one of my favourite sayings is, you can't handpick your audience. I feel like I'm making music for people who think like me about music, and that takes a lot of different forms. I could never generalise - but I think if I were to generalise, I'd think that you would say that most of my fans are music lovers who are looking for something outside of the mainstream: maybe a little bit hard to pin down, a little bit hard to categorise.

  DJ Shadow

  Thinking, People, Different

  Source: thequietus.com

• I've tried to tell people that the reason I don't really get excited over good press is that I don't want to get agitated over bad press. I don't wanna get too high on good press, too low on bad press. It's just not a healthy way to engage with my own feelings about my music.

  DJ Shadow

  People, Healthy, Feelings

  Source: thequietus.com

• I think one of the things about ageing is the jagged peaks become a little bit mellower...? Heheh. And I feel like I'm able to understand a little bit better where that sort of tack comes from.

  DJ Shadow

  Thinking

  Source: thequietus.com

• I always like to remain a fan, put it that way: and I like to hold the idealised version of what these artists are like. Greed is one of those components of human nature that's inherent in everyone, and sometimes it is an unpleasant thing to engage in.

  DJ Shadow

  Artist, Greed, Sometimes

  Source: thequietus.com

• I just felt, at the time, a little bit relieved, because I was kinda counting the days: 'Come on! Let's get these records into people's homes - nobody will ever be able to get them all back, and it'll be an artefact out in the world.'

  DJ Shadow

  Home, World, Relieved

  Source: thequietus.com

• Sometimes there's this balance: if you try to clear 10 things you'll probably get lucky and be able to clear most of them, or all of them; try to clear 20 things, in my mind there's gonna be at least one issue, maybe two - and then that's when it starts getting into either re-recording stuff, or you've got to take that song off.

  DJ Shadow

  Song, Mind, Balance

  Source: thequietus.com

• The story I always recite - and have had to recite so many times over the years to different lawyers and different people within Universal - is that the business end of Mo'Wax was basically, like, 'Give us the big ones samples first, and we'll see how we get on.' And I gave them the six or seven that were, to me, the ones that were the scariest, and the biggest use. It wasn't about the big names, necessarily - although that played into it a bit, with people like Bjork and Metallica.

  DJ Shadow

  People, Different, Lawyer

  Source: thequietus.com

• Through it all, the words of John Peel echo strongly within me: you have support the music that's being made now. You have to continue to look forward and learn from what's happening. That's my philosophy, anyway.

  DJ Shadow

  Philosophy, Support

  Source: thequietus.com

• I feel like you're being coy if you don't do something and celebrate the 20th or 25th anniversary in some way. Just as I've never, ever had any kind of embargo on playing songs from Endtroducing, no matter how much I wanted people to like my new stuff - I've never, ever stopped playing Endtroducing, for that reason as well. It's a give and take - it's a balance. If there's one theme, I guess, to this entire discussion, then it's that.

  DJ Shadow

  Song, People, Giving

  Source: thequietus.com

• I think I would be much more enthusiastic about a band that covered more than just one particular album of mine. I don't ever really intend to record or to do shows with a live band. I don't really have a problem with it, but it doesn't really affect me either way.

  DJ Shadow

  Thinking, Problem, Enthusiastic

  Source: thequietus.com

• I have a natural fear of anything that feels like celebrating my own past to an extent that doesn't allow me to continue to look forward. I don't know psychologically why it is, but I get a little uncomfortable with nostalgia.

  DJ Shadow

  Past, Nostalgia, Natural

  Source: thequietus.com

• It's satisfying to put out new music. And I think that's the context in which I'm comfortable revisiting things from the past.

  DJ Shadow

  Past, Thinking

  Source: thequietus.com

• I almost feel like there's some kind of connection that I'm having trouble putting in to words, in the same sense that I'm learning things from my children still. I think, just like any relationship, if I choose to become twisted and bitter it can be a source of distress or discomfort. But I think I've come to terms with the fact that I would prefer to see it as a gift. And I would prefer to see it as something that empowers me rather than something that diminishes me in some way.

  DJ Shadow

  Children, Thinking, Empowering

  Source: thequietus.com

• It's about respecting what I think people like about the original music. I'm not gonna ever take it to the extent that I'm kinda George Lucas-ing moments of the album over and over again, trying to get them right over the next 30 years - I don't wanna do anything like that. But, yeah - it's a... fascinating conundrum through the years.

  DJ Shadow

  Thinking, People, Trying

  Source: thequietus.com

• When I play that music live nowadays, there's a lot of things I feel I'd like to do - even things I don't think the audience is aware of, like layering subs underneath the kicks, and layering crisp hats underneath the muddy, trashy hats of the '90s. If I tried to play the music as it was next to my contemporary music, it just sounds like you're closing up half of the sonic spectrum.

  DJ Shadow

  Thinking, Like You, Audience

  Source: thequietus.com

• I think a band - even a band that's been around as long as the Rolling Stones - I think that's still the formula. You know you're gonna get those songs, and you don't mind sitting through the ones that you maybe don't know very well because you know they're not gonna let you down - they're not gonna mess with you. And I kind of feel the same way about the way I structure my shows.

  DJ Shadow

  Song, Thinking, Long

  Source: thequietus.com

• As far as the mechanics of how the music was made, there's no denying: Endtroducing was extremely simple. That's not to denigrate it - that doesn't mean I'm knocking it or I'm saying my new stuff is better, or anything like that: it just means, I literally had, what, 12.5 seconds of stereo sampling at my disposal, and some turntable overdubs... The nature of the beast back then was probably about 50% looping and 50% chopping, and that was what you could do with samples.

  DJ Shadow

  Mean, Simple, Beast

  Source: thequietus.com

• When I'm representing my music live I think of it very much in a rock band sense. When I first started doing festivals in the 90s there really weren't other DJs playing the stages I was playing. So I felt I was being afforded an opportunity to kind of make a statement about what DJ music can be live. In the 90s, if you were a DJ you were in the dance tent, and you were playing house music and techno music. There was no such thing as a DJ - a solo DJ - on a stage, after a rock band and before another rock band: that just didn't happen.

  DJ Shadow

  Opportunity, Thinking, House

  Source: thequietus.com

• I feel less and less like that every year, and I guess maybe even more so with every new record that I put out. I just think, as the years go by, it's harder and harder to really find a reason to be annoyed that you made something that people want to continuously talk about. Certainly there are contexts in which the record can be discussed which will get me on the defensive and make me want to put some kind of calibration or some kind of context on what the record means in relation to my career as a whole.

  DJ Shadow

  Mean, Thinking, People

  Source: thequietus.com

• I've said this a lot lately, too: if, 20 or 30 years down the road, when everything's said and done, I was never able to achieve that level of zeitgeist again, then so be it. I know how rare it is for anybody to do that. But I also feel like, OK, we're getting on to 25 years of putting out records: that's also kind of rare air for anybody who makes music. And I think you just end up kind of grateful for every opportunity that comes along.

  DJ Shadow

  Grateful, Opportunity, Thinking

  Source: thequietus.com

• When I'm looking for DJ sets and stuff to drop, I look for music that I feel is gonna get the reaction I want from the crowd.

  DJ Shadow

  Looks, Crowds, Want

  Source: www.highsnobiety.com

• I would agree with you that there's 90% imitation and 10% innovation. That's true of any genre.

  DJ Shadow

  Innovation, Imitation, Genre

  Source: www.highsnobiety.com

• I would rather have 10 people working on a record that are really committed and believe in it and love it, than 50 people who have no idea who I am or what I'm for.

  DJ Shadow

  Believe, Who I Am, Ideas

  Source: www.highsnobiety.com

• I would much rather people kick and scream and tear their hair out and accuse me of all kinds of blasphemy, than just have no opinion whatsoever.

  DJ Shadow

  Hair, People, Tears

  Source: www.highsnobiety.com