Latest Dan Deacon Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• You can have a table full of gourmet food, but the minute you put a box of Entenmann's doughnuts out, that's all people are gonna talk about.

  Dan Deacon

  People, Doughnut

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think there is going to be a large paradigm shift in a few years, and it could either be to a new age of enlightenment and unity and we'll be raised to a new level of consciousness, or it could be a return to a dark age of kings and mass, open oppression followed by a die-off of human culture.

  Dan Deacon

  Dark, Thinking, Unity

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I do subscribe to the 2012 theory, but regardless of the date, it's hard not to notice that humans are polluting the earth with humans, that soon it'll be difficult to get water to people and find land to grow food on. The infrastructures that hold up cities are going to be harder to maintain, and the resources that make it possible are going to be harder to find. I'm not even talking about oil; I'm talking about, like, steel.

  Dan Deacon

  Water, People, Earth

  Source: www.avclub.com

• When I went to school, it was really just to immerse myself in listening to, studying, and making music. I came out like, "How is this going to be more than a hobby I'm always paying off debt for?" I could've sat at a desk and written pieces for orchestras that never would have been played, or I could've written music for me as a performer. I play electronics, and the places I was gonna be playing were bass clubs and house parties.

  Dan Deacon

  Party, School, House

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I really do like seeing other people perform my music. It's one of the most rewarding things for me, so it's worth the extra work.

  Dan Deacon

  People, Extras

  Source: www.avclub.com

• To get large groups of people to dance, there needs to be something accessible about the music. The beat can't be too esoteric, but unless we're talking about prog or etherealist composition, I think there's something simplistic about most music. What's completely insane to me is that people would consider music that's simple to be dumbed-down. Couldn't simplicity be a deliberate, smart choice? Those people aren't really listening; they're judging a song off of a beat, off of a pulse.

  Dan Deacon

  Song, Smart, Simple

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think as this generation of electronic musicians goes on, popular electronic music will be more and more accepted. It's gonna get less confusing. You know, most people called rap stupid when it started, and it was one of the most innovative music forms of its time.

  Dan Deacon

  Stupid, Rap, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think living in Baltimore and being a part of the community and trying to be part of as many communities as possible within the city, the best thing that anyone can do in Baltimore is just to be a part of it and contribute to it and to not see it as...A lot of people from outside the city see this city for its blight and I feel like people who live within the city do the opposite and see this city for what defines it as, in my mind, the most beautiful place to live.

  Dan Deacon

  Beautiful, Thinking, People

  Source: www.slate.com

• I don't think there's anything wrong in being an entertainer because if at the end of the day people want to forget about their problems or to process their problems through something joyous, I think that's ultimately what my role in this is.

  Dan Deacon

  Thinking, People, Problem

  Source: www.slate.com

• The smaller the instrument or more hidden it is such as electronics, the more esoteric it becomes and in my mind becomes boring watching someone go like this and that has no direct... It's just a complete abstract motion, not attach to any sound.

  Dan Deacon

  Mind, Boring, Abstract

  Source: www.slate.com

• I always want my mouth to be like two steps ahead of my brain and I want my hands to move without thinking. I want to be able to dive into my computer or use my controllers without having to be, like, "Hmm, what would be a good choice here?" You just want music to happen like the same way the sweat's rolling off my face.

  Dan Deacon

  Moving, Thinking, Choices

  Source: www.slate.com

• I think the best live shows take you out of the moment into somewhere else and I really...This can be true of recorded music too but my favorite live experience is sort of this transcendendent - is that the word? Transcendental?

  Dan Deacon

  Thinking, Moments, My Favorite

  Source: www.slate.com

• I often envy a filmmaker or a playwright or an author where people are like, "Yeah, I sat down every night and read your book and it was beautiful." Or, "Yeah, I went to the movies and all I did was watch the movie because that's all you could do at the movies." Where with music, it's like, "Ugh, I love your music. I listen to it while I'm jogging thinking about how I hate my body." But it is also the privilege of being a musician is you can have your music in this documented form and play it live and that's, I think, what draws me to it the most.

  Dan Deacon

  Beautiful, Hate, Book

  Source: www.slate.com

• Finishing a song is definitely the hardest part. It's, you know, you can polish it forever and then whittle it down into something it wasn't and be like, "I need to build it back up," which is why some tracks have 400 versions. But I guess you know when it's done when...I have a maximalist approach to sound when I can't find any more space to put new sounds.

  Dan Deacon

  Song, Track, Forever

  Source: www.slate.com

• I think a lot of electronic musicians are drawn to starting with texture because the whole reason we're working with electronics is to try to create new sounds or sounds that cannot be created acoustically. When you're doing that, it's nice to be able to just create a different palette for every single song. I feel like a lot of electronic music sounds like...Each album sounds like a compilation more than it does a band.

  Dan Deacon

  Song, Nice, Thinking

  Source: www.slate.com

• I'm often just writing just to write. I'm not writing with...If I write, like, sitting down with a goal in mind, it's always, like, the worst. It turns into a ska song even if I'm trying to write like a horror movie sound track or something.

  Dan Deacon

  Song, Writing, Goal

  Source: www.slate.com

• Email is a mind-killer. Like, I really think getting a smartphone is the worst move I ever did in being a musician because while we've just been talking my phone's vibrated like 15 times and I only get push notifications for like two apps, so either like a bunch of houses are going up for sale right now or someone's like, "Why aren't you emailing me back?" It's just hard to stay in the moment. I can understand why people go to retreats to write and stuff like that but I don't have the time.

  Dan Deacon

  Moving, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.slate.com

• Obviously, selling out is an issue but it's almost like an uncanny valley where you can be pretty unpopular for a while but you'll have die-hard fans that love you. Then as you get more popular, it'll be great and people will be excited for you and then you get to this middle-level popularity and people are like, "Oh, you're not famous but you're also not - we know who you are." You're just this like hideous disfigured music.

  Dan Deacon

  Love You, People, Excited

  Source: www.slate.com

• I think the hardest part is figuring out what to say no to because the whole start of your career is just begging anybody to let you perform or to contribute music to something. Then it's like turning on a faucet because the moment it's on, people are like, "Oh, you can do stuff? All right. Well, you want to do it every single thing?

  Dan Deacon

  Thinking, People, Moments

  Source: www.slate.com

• It's hard not to sell out because once, you know, I grew up with working-class parents who definitely, definitely would be disappointed if I didn't take particular jobs being like, "What are you talking about? I would have worked years for that money in like, actual physical labor." So there's a privilege to not selling out. You already have to be in a position where you can look at that money and not care about it.

  Dan Deacon

  Parent, Care, Selling

  Source: www.slate.com

• That's tangent, but I like the strategizing and thinking about how things are going to fall and thinking of different ways to engage with fans. Ultimately, the goal is for the music to be heard by as many people as possible.

  Dan Deacon

  Fall, Thinking, Goal

  Source: www.slate.com

• Going back to the paradigm we live in, the only way to do music is if I can sustain living off of it. If I can't live off of it, I'm not going to be able to make as much music.

  Dan Deacon

  Music Is, Paradigm

  Source: www.slate.com

• I thought I wouldn't enjoy the business side of music, but it's fun because it is completely - like running a DIY venue was the same exact thing but just on a smaller scale and a DIY tour is the same thing. You're just running a small business. Like we live within the paradigm of capitalism. Even if I'm going in playing these anarcho spaces, I still have to buy gas.

  Dan Deacon

  Running, Fun, Small Business

  Source: www.slate.com

• When music becomes a job, you all of a sudden have other jobs and you become like a manager of time. If you have no ability to do that, your job gets very hard very quickly.

  Dan Deacon

  Music Is, Ability

  Source: www.slate.com

• Live performances make music important. Recording is cool and fun, and it's nice to document the thing you made, but the goal in my mind is to perform.

  Dan Deacon

  Fun, Nice, Goal

  Source: pitchfork.com