There are more people that are WORTH playing for and making records for than the fickle and casual - they just don't blog about what they hate as much. I feel like every show that we play live reminds me of why I play music. When you're away from that personal connection, you can get wound up in all the hoo-ha about this and that, but when you get out there and connect with people, you can't help but be moved, and that keeps you going at least until the next show!
Ted LeoWhen I started playing solo 10 years ago, I had some ham-fisted idea about trying to subvert the "singer-songwriter" tag/genre, and I tried to obscure my identity into the identity of a collective or band or whatever. That's part of the reason that I used to play with backing tapes and why so much of my early stuff was so awash in tape hiss and echo noise.
Ted LeoThere are more people that are WORTH playing for and making records for than the fickle and casual - they just don't blog about what they hate as much. I feel like every show that we play live reminds me of why I play music. When you're away from that personal connection, you can get wound up in all the hoo-ha about this and that, but when you get out there and connect with people, you can't help but be moved, and that keeps you going at least until the next show!
Ted LeoI am the stereo-typical classic lapsed Catholic. Religious themes crop up in my songs sometimes as metaphors and other kinds of touchstones for getting at issues and "deeper issues," and all that. Right now, honestly, I think all religion is proving itself to be a NET negative on the human race. I recognize its valuable place in individual lives and many larger communities - I know the good that is done in its various names all over the world, but I don't believe in it anymore, and I see the negative aspects dragging us down at a much faster rate than the positive ones are bouying us up.
Ted LeoI gotta make a living somehow, and make ends meet. I accept the idea of having a retirement.
Ted LeoThe obsessive documentation is itself adjacent to hyper-consumption in our society. The desire to just have everything all the time and adjacent to that is - it might be a little hokey but - a certain loss of identity that then only gets sort of found or ascribed to these moments that are documented.
Ted Leo