Aaron Dessner Quotes

I work so I don't need to make rent through my songs, and I think if more people engaged with music without needing it to provide for their welfare, you're not beholden to anyone.

Our society and media have lost touch with the job of the artist. The job of the artist has been subordinated to the job of the record seller.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer.

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

I just wanted to be an artist. I didn't care how or what; I just wanted to express my artistic integrity, and I wanted the world to have a vision of what I was seeing in my mind.

I think there is a debate in the arts about, you know, whether we must strive for art for art's sake, and you know, kind of try to keep political debate out of our work. And to that I say, I'd like you to show me an example of, you know, this so-called apolitical art. I don't think there's any such thing.

There's nothing remotely interesting to me about marketing music as a product.

Putting out commercial pieces and promoting them and trying to sell them to people is not necessarily what it means to be an artist.

I've tried to be more self-sufficient as I've gotten older. I'd like to not worry about whether they're going to sell my next album or book. Hell, William Blake wasn't even published in his lifetime.

One of the worst things that can happen to an artist is to perceive himself as the owner of his art, and art as his tool. A product of the marketplace sensibility, this attitude barely differs on a psychological plane from the patron's view of the artist as a paid employee.

The second you feel a political imperative, it destroys your art.

I tried playing for the public, and I selected music that I thought would be pleasing to them. Times are different now. Today, I play the music I want, and I just try to do my best.

I just write what I write, produce the music I produce and try to give myself a chance to stay true to the art form. If you try to rein in an art form, it can be hurtful to what you are making.

As a musician, I don't wanna put out political soundbites.

At the end of the day, I earn a living by creating music and not sharing it with anyone because I am my own master. I know my worth.

We're just nerds that play music. Because we get played on the radio and have a Vitaminwater ad with Aaron Paul dancing on a treadmill, people are going to say we sold out. I don't write music for that. I write music for me.

We kind of reached this point in life where we don't really want to put out anything just to put something out. We really don't want it to be like, 'Two years are up. You've had your break; now do another record and get it out there.'

If you want to be an entertainer and just keep your audience happy, that's one thing. But to be an artist, I think, means ultimately primarily pleasing yourself, and in that respect, you constantly have this sense of confronting the expectations of your audience.

The rule I stand by as an artist is definitely be yourself, and don't make music just for other people: make it for you first.

I think a lot of times we think of music as being different from other art forms. You would never ask a sculptor or painter, 'Go paint this because you'll get paid more,' you know what I mean?