Andrew VanWyngarden Quotes

I'm proud of the lyrics because I take a lot of care in writing them. I try to make it so people will want to go in and get really into the lyrics. I hope there are different corners to them, with lots of levels-without sounding pretentious.

I was nervous during Radiohead, we thought that they would hate us. I think when we played in LA, one of the dudes from Entourage was in the audience, and that was kinda weird. If anyone would make me nervous it would be David Bowie, Neil Young, someone like that.

There was this large group of people that we were talking about on the first album - "The Youth" - but we didn't really know what to tell them. We still don't know what to tell them, but we want to make it seem like maybe there's something we know that they want to know, too.

We thought of ourselves as musical terrorists at shows - were weren't biting heads off bats, but we wanted to annoy and confront people.

We like being ridiculous and I think that's lost on a lot of people, or they think we're coming from this super serious angle, and that's too bad, really.

I don't feel too comfortable talking about politics and media as I feel like I don't sound too smart.

We're really into combining lots of different styles into one song: that's normal for us. It might seem arbitrary but we listen to a lot of music that does that.

I think that love is just as important and prevalent and real as it ever was.

If you're conscious you must be depressed, or at least cynical.

I don't think it is too good especially with music to worry about authenticity, it can get in the way of doing something which comes naturally from your own head which is the most authentic thing [of all].

I have a bad habit of picking up books about drugs, but that's better than having a drug habit, I think.

We think about strategies in pop songs to make people listen to them and be like, "What the hell was that?" But then they have to listen to it again.

We were thinking about how other people deal with this career on every song. We got to meet people like Thom Yorke and hear him say how it's never normal when fans just come up to you. It's always a strange job. We don't want to come off like we're pitying ourselves for having this job because it's really amazing in a lot of ways. But there's a lot of stuff that comes with it that we're not really comfortable with.

It's not like we wanted to get really political in terms of specific causes, but I think a lot of the lyrics deal with paranoia and feeling like "the man" is in control somehow.

Usually when I write lyrics I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of other stuff. Some of my favourite lyricists are like Lou Reed, kind of the classics - Bob Dylan and stuff like that.

The main reason we didn't break up is because we weren't really a college band. We were just, two dudes who were messing around with music. We never played off-campus except for once or twice. We never had any ambitions to make it as a band after college, or anything like that. So that probably worked in our favor. We never took anything seriously, we still don't!

We like the idea of being a little divisive without making it into some kind of philosophical musical approach, and maybe we can convert some people to our view of the world.

I think things like YouTube and Twitter are really cool and really good in some ways, but the fact that the news is cutting to a YouTube clip on national TV, I think is really weird.

Here's what I think. I think that a lot of days, for me recently, it's like every split second the whole universe is created and destroyed. It's like constantly collapsing and reforming. And I think a lot of people feel that. I think that love is the answer and that's the only thing that matters.

When we were doing noisier shows, they were fun, but we were trying to be really obnoxious and it wasn't like we were trying to make good music. I mean, I'm happier when we have smoothed out a little bit. I think that the spirit of the noise and experimental stuff is still there, but it's easier to do when you're a freshman in college.

Maybe we're just stupid and don't realize you can't make music that sounds like a chase scene from a 'Scooby Doo' cartoon and have people take you seriously.

I love movies and I think that we wouldn't ever stop making videos just because people aren't watching them. I think that's just kinda sad. It would be cool to spend a lot of money, but we'll always make videos just for ourselves.

FACT!: I wanna live in a castle.

Live we're a lot louder and noisier on the album. I think for the album we took a lot of time for the songwriting and we wanted to make good pop music, and I think there's plus and minuses to doing pop music and noise.

I have the same birthday as George Washington. No I don't. I don't even know who George Washington is.

Even big-bird gets sad sometimes

In general, the musicians we met that made the most sense just said to do what feels right and try not worry about what other people think. I know that sounds stupid and simple. I feel like Neil Young has done that and he's still making albums. He's one of the people I really look up to as someone who has kind of stuck to their guns their whole career. Just making music for music.

I think that especially in the U.S. there's this kind of sensationalizing of news - and making it almost like CNN and stuff are entertainment networks.

I don't think it's necessary to worry too much about being authentic. I think a picture taken on an iPhone and then filtered through something to make it look like it was taken on a Super 8 camera can be just as authentic as something taken on a Super 8 camera, if it's capturing something real or beautiful.