Songs, a while ago, became the medium through which I process most of the information that I receive and feel. But I go back and forth about whether this is all of life or whether you’re missing something important in living and whether or not, as a humanist, you’re abnegating a certain responsibility if this – this art – is just where you are. David Longstreth Read Quote
It’s helpful to just hear things through friends’ ears, people who know you well. I guess when I started Dirty Projectors, when I was, like, 20, I always imagined it would be kind of like an amphibious vehicle: something that could go with me wherever I need to go. That kind of constant change has been in the DNA from the beginning. David Longstreth Read Quote
I remember when that Kelis song ‘Milkshake’ came out, and just how extreme it seemed in terms of that really high triangle part and then the really low subs and then her voice in the middle. David Longstreth Read Quote
I wasn’t into chimpanzees or gorillas because I kinda felt like they were the Coke and Pepsi of the primate world. David Longstreth Read Quote
A few things I’ve noticed about myself as a listener, and the music that I relate to and the music that’s continued to mean something to me since I was a little kid or a teenager, is that they’re songs that tell stories and songs that come from a place of experience. David Longstreth Read Quote
Working as a producer, an arranger, and, in some cases, as a writer for some other people gave me a super different perspective. David Longstreth Read Quote
One thing that I’ve often done under the Projectors is build an album from a central conceit. David Longstreth Read Quote
I got a little baby grand piano off Craigslist for, like, $500. It’s a beautiful instrument that you hear on a bunch of the songs. That’s that piano on ‘Keep Your Name’ and ‘Work Together’ and ‘Little Bubble.’ David Longstreth Read Quote
I do have my more concept-y albums, and then I have the ones that are more about just collections of songs. For me, the first Dirty Projectors record that I put out was like that: ‘The Glad Fact.’ David Longstreth Read Quote
