I always want to try and see what the appeal is in anything. It's the healthiest and most honest approach.
John DarnielleI wrote short stories when I was a teenager, but they weren't any good and I kinda knew it.
John DarnielleI'm kind of a hermit. Left to my own devices, I won't submerge myself in anything further afield than the driveway.
John DarnielleI think listening to a lot of Lou Reed when I was a teenager is what encouraged me to just sing however felt good to me.
John DarnielleI have a hunger for justice, but art is a place I've always enjoyed being able to be free - to live in worlds that you don't have to be thinking about that all the time. I don't see myself writing Upton Sinclair books. My books are to entertain, although to me, entertainment is to make you feel sadness or to get in touch with your own pain - or fear, or to remember somebody who has gone missing from your life. That's my calling.
John DarnielleWhat I like is horror movies, including '80s slasher movies that politically I have all kinds of problems with. Which is an interesting balance, because I have this leftist puritan strain that, well, if you like something that goes against your politics, maybe you should train yourself not to like it. But I know that I like horror movies and that's what I watch when I get a moment.
John Darnielle