I think the record-buying public know what they like, and when people are trying to pander to them, I think they know it. They want the genuine article, so if we try to sort of "dumb down" for the mass public, I think they're too smart for that, and would recognize us as fakes. It seems like the bands that do crossover do so really on their own terms, and they just find that their terms just kind of make a big dove-tail with the masses.
Ira KaplanI remember being in college and taking a class on classical music and getting a big laugh when I said very sincerely that I was not really into trained voices. Some of the greatest singers can transcend their technical perfection and still sound great.
Ira KaplanThere's a lot of music that we've never heard before. It's not like we're just pulling out December's Children by The Rolling Stones and listening to that again and again. We are listening to things we've never heard, but they do tend to be from the past.
Ira Kaplan