Justin Vernon Quotes

I am not a pop musician; I don't want to play bubble-gummy pop stuff.

Just because I front the band or we play bigger stages now, it doesn't mean we somehow suddenly changed the way we approach things. We all still view what we do as indie and alternative in terms of how we execute it, even if the actual music we make is more pop than our previous projects.

I just play under the name Mt. Eerie. I started doing that in 2003 and I've pretty much been doing that since then.

And I think that we're more of an alternative act in that sense, and that flavor comes across to the audience.

I've had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, 'Your music sucks, you don't know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don't know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.'

I was never attracted to the pop world. I listen to music that is pop sometimes. But I've never thought, 'Oh, I need to work with Ne-Yo now.' It's never really been my thing.

I'm not making music for people who like Disney shows. I make music for people who like music.

Edible names are what drives me as a musician. My next band will be called the Hot Dogs.

When I first started, I wasn't really aware of anything in the industry or aware of who I really was. I just put my music out there and tried to get as many people to hear it as possible. I hadn't really thought about the kind of music I wanted to make.

My music isn't mainstream music.

The thing is that when I'm making music, I'm not really chasing that sound - the Atlanta sound that we hear a lot.

I don't see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear 'pop,' you're like, 'Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,' and I feel like, 'Uh-uh. That's not me.'

If I had a good scream, like Frank Black, I'd be doing punk music, 'cos I love that.

We're not the corporation of Foster the People. We're a band.

If you go back and listen to the album 'Name' was on, there were a lot of garage songs on it.

Punk helped musical fringes get attention. Stuff like Nirvana could never have happened without it.

I've wanted to do a solo album since 2000 when I was writing songs for the 'Machine' record.

I never thought of myself as a songwriter. I was just an artist writing songs, and they just happened to get placed.

We were big Clash fans, you know, big Who fans and I think we would listen to this music and talk about music and do nothing but music night and day, and when it came time to actually making our own music, you feel compelled to sort of tuck all those influences away, not show them.

Ultimately it's just music - whether I'm catering to the Bollywood audience or the indie audience. I just approach every type of music the way I am, and how my personality is.

I don't ever go and write music for an album. That's not something I do. I don't go and write music for an audience or a career; I don't do that at all. I write basically all the time. I'm addicted to it.

I end up pleading my case to alternative programmers - you're telling me that my music is too dark for pop, too pop for alternative, and urban radio won't touch it - so we have a record that doesn't fit in. And what is more alternative than that?

Our music is weird. It's not pop. I don't know why so many people buy our records.

I understand that, because there are so many musicians, you have to make artists into brands, but I sometimes feel like I have to be some kind of non-human icon in order for people to listen to my music.

I grew up listening to the alternative rock music from the '90s. Some of my favorite bands included Dinosaur Jr, Guided By Voices, and Cobra Verde.