A lot of people at my school could play the "Stairway to Heaven" guitar solo, but they couldn't play three chords of a Ramones song if their life depended on it because they didn't have the strength or ability to do it. But all I did was practice that, and the style that I eventually fell into is more focused than people would actually imagine.
Kevin ShieldsI wasn't making music for the sake of music but rather making music in the context of other music. At the same time, it doesn't mean I'm not going to try and do that some day.
Kevin ShieldsEven I just listen to some bands on YouTube. I'll think, "Oh, I quite like that, I should buy it someday," but I don't get around to buying half the stuff I liked.
Kevin ShieldsThe technical reason why remastering is valuable is because, up to around the late 90s, there was this endpoint called zero, and you couldn't get louder than zero.
Kevin ShieldsWe've had incredibly huge obstacles in our way - no tapes, no royalties, no cooperation on any level - and we sort it out.
Kevin ShieldsI don't feel bound by the ebbs and flows of musical trends, or what's happening with new music in general. I always had a fascination with that sound. It's a mixture of the idea that something could be going wrong along with the idea of bending constrained, Westernized music out of tune. But because I wasn't copying an idea, and it just came from somewhere inside me, it felt like a birth of something that most people didn't understand at the time.
Kevin Shields