John Flansburgh Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• In Germany there's something about rock music much more political than it really is - like everything you were doing was an indictment of the American culture. I read an interview with one of the members of Sebadoh. He was saying he had just got back from touring Germany for the first time in five years or whatever, and one of the interviewers asked him, "Why aren't you still relevant?"

  John Flansburgh

  Political, Culture, Rock Music

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• This happened years and years ago, right as our videos were first being played on MTV. The interviewer said, "You guys are getting famous now. Are you going to be riding around in limousines, doing drugs, and sleeping with beautiful women?" And I was a precocious young man, and my snappy comeback to that cheerful question was, "We're willing to sleep with beautiful women." But no part of the question was in the article.

  John Flansburgh

  Beautiful, Sleep, Men

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Any time having international interviews is a language barrier, you don't know how much you need to simplify what you're saying for it not to be damaged in translation. But culturally, there are some interesting phenomena. I get the feeling that the way rock music gets described in Germany, it is all like Rolling Stone circa 1975, taken to the 10th power. If you're a rock musician, you're part of the counterculture. Your music is like a critique of everything that is wrong with America.

  John Flansburgh

  Taken, Interesting, Feelings

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Bill O'Reilly knew he could just filibuster and enjoy all the airtime that a full interview would give him, and then also grab the sensationalist headlines that he enjoys creating. He used this as fodder for his show for weeks. I wouldn't want to be on the bad side of Bill O'Reilly. But then again, maybe I am now. By giving this interview.

  John Flansburgh

  Giving, Week, Enjoy

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes people will ask a real "Why are you beating your wife?" question where there's some assumption built into it, and all you're trying to do is kind of re-contextualize it with some element of truth, and it comes across as incredibly defensive, or just really weird.

  John Flansburgh

  Real, People, Wife

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• A lot of times I'll post things on Facebook, and the immediate response will be like, "Stick to the music!"

  John Flansburgh

  Response

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• People love fact-based songs, which is a very funny idea.

  John Flansburgh

  Song, People

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• All rock music is fake news.

  John Flansburgh

  Fake, Rock Music, Music Is

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think that the most effective social protest that any artist can do would be things that come naturally and feel obvious. I think the Resist movement will continue among people who believe in science, who believe in rights for women, who believe in civil rights.

  John Flansburgh

  Believe, Artist, Thinking

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think bands should feel compelled to speak out unless they actually have something to say. I think that's a big mistake, where you're turning into a coyote running off the edge of a cliff. Too often, people just feel like something is happening and they want to be part of this thing, and it's just, there's sort of a "me too!" and that's about it.

  John Flansburgh

  Running, Mistake, Thinking

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• It sucks to think about, honestly, but when you really consider the resources that it takes to press vinyl records, or the amount of gas that it takes to tour, it's really quite scary.

  John Flansburgh

  Thinking, Scary, Vinyl

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• The main thing that we're doing is thinking we can control anything, which is the biggest false assumption we can make. I think we can figure out how to tread a lot more lightly on the environment, and we'll be a lot better off.

  John Flansburgh

  Thinking, Assumption, Environment

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• I feel like the future is unwritten. So many of the things that we write now haven't been about educating people on the environment, they've been about disseminating facts. But I feel like it could be productive to write something that explored directly the idea of fragility.

  John Flansburgh

  Writing, People, Environment

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• We're affable guys in They Might Be Giants. We're not gonna do the periscope-down thing, but it's a little bit mind-bending. The biggest struggle is trying to figure out a way to back up far enough in your answer that it can be read without the context of the question. Every declarative statement you see that comes out of an interview with somebody is actually in response to a question. So it's sort of like this very real interpersonal dance where one of the people involved is invisible.

  John Flansburgh

  Real, Struggle, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• There is a fact-based belief system available to you if you want to believe in facts. But this is the weirdest time. I mean, after Nixon I thought nothing could be weirder. Then there was Reagan, and after Reagan I thought nothing could be weirder. Then there was Bush and Bush's son, and it all just seemed like nothing could be a badder joke than George W. Bush. And now we're here. It seems to just yo-yo around, but hopefully we'll get to another level.

  John Flansburgh

  Believe, Mean, Son

  Source: www.mtv.com

  4 Copy quote

• If you're looking at the array of performers, there's just a lot of people that it's about getting closer to them. That's not really our focus. It's funny, with the kids' stuff, we really sell ourselves as the MC, but it's much more like we're Ed Sullivan than we're like Sting. We're just the presenters. And that's an idea that we're very comfortable with.

  John Flansburgh

  People, Focus

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• It's always interesting to me when one platform of media crosses into another. We've been on the Terry Gross show Fresh Air a couple of times, and I suddenly felt like we could actually represent ourselves as exactly who we are, in this sort of ultra-vivid way. But the weird thing to me is that the questions she asks are in some ways no different than the questions the guy from the high-school paper asks. She might even ask us where we got our name. But something about it, it's like the pH balance of the trajectory of the questions. Maybe it's just her voice.

  John Flansburgh

  Couple, Interesting, Guy

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Every declarative statement that comes out of an interview with somebody is actually in response to a question. It's like this very real interpersonal dance where one of the people involved is invisible.

  John Flansburgh

  Real, People, Invisible

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• Being in a band, a lot of times people think of what you're doing in terms of a competition. They talk about where you are professionally in your career, and all this other stuff. And if you're a lifer, you know it's going to be ups and downs. It's not like anybody is always just steady on.

  John Flansburgh

  Thinking, People, Competition

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I read The Onion, and I've read a lot of interviews that are very direct, often with people who are never direct. Which is interesting. But somehow the A.V.Club part of The Onion, I don't think is telegraphed into the popular culture.

  John Flansburgh

  Thinking, People, Interesting

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• I think the biggest wrestling match-up I have is how to respond to the word "quirky." Or the alternate, "nerdy." Both are essentially benign to the reader, but if you're a writer just sort of involved in your creative process, they seem like very small motivations.

  John Flansburgh

  Motivation, Wrestling, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

• That really sums up the strange bluntness that a really prime German interview can have. They're really interested in your cultural velocity in this way that I don't think people in the United States even necessarily think about alternative-rock bands. So it's not like we're against regular rock. We're not like a battling army shaking our weapons against The Rolling Stones.

  John Flansburgh

  Army, Thinking, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

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