In the early '90s, it felt like there was space - there was like an empty feel. There was nobody really doing this. Maybe the Pixies were, a little bit. Their lyrics were also disjointed, more psychosexual or something. That's part of youth, too, maybe, that you just feel like you're doing something different.
Stephen MalkmusThere's something in life that's cool, it's relatively cheap, and fun, and populist. Even when it's elitist.
Stephen MalkmusUsually [the lyrics] go from one word to the next word - there's no finish line. The music was that way, too.
Stephen MalkmusOne time I went to Berlin and, for some reason, everywhere I was going they had fishbowls. Like a fishbowl by your bed or a fish tank in the bar. They seem obsessed with this IKEA version of nature, which a fishbowl kind of is. They had that going on. I just don't really like having a goldfish by the side of my bed. I feel kind of sad for it, rather than happy. But I thought that was really weird. Maybe they have human fishbowls.
Stephen MalkmusI didn't really like confessional poetry or things. They seemed sort of dated to me, or just corny.
Stephen MalkmusIt's easy to be negatively funny about personalities in the media. It's just kind of a cheap laugh.
Stephen MalkmusWhat we're doing now, it's usually more based on records that I've bought or a projection of what I can do well now and the inner dynamics of playing with the people I'm playing with, Janet Weiss and Joanna Bolme, what we come up with. What works for us doesn't, like, have that much relation to the past.
Stephen Malkmus