I feel totally disconnected from reality in Washington. Maybe I'm just really pretentious - in fact, I probably am - but I feel like people in this city have no idea about where their reality is coming from and who is helping them to live in this illusion. I've gone from the south side of Chicago, where everyone is completely unrealistic about what's important in life to a place like this, where people are still unrealistic about what's important, but it's on two opposite sides of the spectrum. I just get tired of it all. It makes me really, really angry.
Willis Earl BealAs far as trying to make it terms of social hierarchy or status and all that in art and music - I've always felt that that stuff was bullshit. It's got very little to do with reality, and reality is where things live. You look at a painting and think, "Oh, it's beautiful. It inspires me," whatever. But it's never going to inspire you like reality. A lot of these artists and musicians who prioritize skill over experience, they sit around masturbating themselves over knowledge and intellect rather than just going to a place.
Willis Earl BealI haven't figured out how to do anything yet besides recording music - I don't even entirely know how to do that. My favorite phrase is "It takes a lot of imagination to have no talent." So it's a struggle because I struggle between thinking about whether or not I'm actually a musician, am I actually an artist. Does it matter what I'm doing? Should I just go and jump off a bridge? Thinking about the social hierarchy and the fact that I'm American, and how I don't identify with being American, nor do I identify with any nationality or my race.
Willis Earl BealThe only way for me to give a good performance is to make myself extremely uncomfortable - and it just so happens that being on stage makes me extremely uncomfortable.
Willis Earl BealI'm very curious about people, and one of the most difficult truths for me to accept as a person is that I'll never be anyone else, and I will never fully understand anyone's perspective other than my own. Because I've come to some understanding of that, I feel it's this very difficult but worthwhile challenge to get as close as I possible can to that. If the only way that we can do that is through language, then that's how it has to be done.
Willis Earl Beal