Talking Heads were a big influence on my comedy. For David Byrne, every album had to be different. With 'Portlandia,' every season has to be different. You gotta reinvent the look, all of it.
I'm not precious about anything. The effort it took to get something means nothing to me in post.And it means nothing to the audience. I'll chop limbs off. I'll put an arm where a leg should be. I'll do anything.
I'm more attracted to art that smashes than I am attracted to art that sits on a shelf and is beautiful.
Art is nowhere near as dangerous as it should be.
I think, as a director, it's always worth pushing yourself and finding out new areas and exploring new ways to tell story.
I remember the first time I ever showed my parents a song that I had written. The content may have been a little darker than they were used to, or really introspective in a way that may have been uncomfortable. I thought they'd retaliate with some kind of judgment or concern about whether I was feeling all right, but they were proud of it.
The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.
We wanted to really push ourselves on 'Past Lives' to actually hold back sometimes, sing in falsetto, let the music open up and take its space.
Anyone in the arts has had an experience of seeing someone who they related to doing something and thinking, 'I could do that.' If you have one generation where you force its hand a bit, then the next one fills in the gaps, because it's seen an example of what can be done.
If I didn't start singing in the cabarets and on my albums, I could have never even tried something like 'Capone.'
A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. No one can tell him about that. No one can control that reality. It reminds me of something Pablo Picasso was supposed to have said to Gertrude Stein while he was painting her portrait. Gertrude said, “I don’t look like that.” And Picasso replied, “You will.” And he was right.
'Some Kind of Monster' is a challenge, and 'Through the Never' is an extension of that. Even the album we made with Lou Reed, it was a challenge.
Art should be able to be innovative without compromising itself. That's why I believe artists should have bigger preoccupations than checking the price tags on their work or becoming curators' darlings.
I've always been inspired by artists who have shown musical and intellectual curiosity and the courage to take risks.
The thing is, if I try to talk about acting, I come off as moaning. But I'm privileged. I think it's all about control. Acting is vulnerable because you're not in control of anything. You have to give up a lot of your trust; it's up to somebody else what they do with what you've given them.
E-40 taught me a long time ago to try different things with my voice, experiment, and only roll with it if it feels right.
I think it's important to widen my artistic repertoire.
I want to put everything I think I've learned about filmmaking and storytelling and put it to the test in other areas.
'Heavy Rain' responded to a period of my life, things I strongly believed in, things I wanted to suggest or experiment with. I'm really happy with the overall feedback; the reception was a success.
It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination and a chainsaw.
The artist must know how far to go too far.
I write all year, and at the end of the year I put an album out. And if sucks, it sucks, and if it's good, it's good. I just let it lay where it lays. It doesn't stop from doing another one next year.
Our first radio single, 'The Stage,' was eight-and-a-half minutes long. Unabashedly, we wanted to push the limits musically, lyrically, and instrumentation-wise.
To me it's more fun and more challenging, too, to do different types of pictures.
The things that I have done that haven't been as successful have been things that have been largely out of the public view, which is great. It's terrible, when you're a theater writer, to have a big flop publicly.
