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 Malkmus

We always did our own mixing.

Stephen Malkmus

mixing

It's hard to think back. I didn't even know I was going to do it, make actual records. But I was always making up songs, once I figured out that you could do it. I think it's pretty much the same, but there's less urge to get it moving out there. There was a time when it seemed like it was really super important to the audience and now it's just medium-important for people to like us. But that's okay.

Stephen Malkmus

song moving thinking

If you'd rather learn how to ride a horse or something, I would say do that. That'll keep you out of trouble. You would think a band would get you in trouble, but I think it's the opposite.

Stephen Malkmus

horse opposites thinking

Everyone wants to be loved, generally. If you released a record and nobody said anything, if you didn't get any feedback from people you don't know, i.e. the press, you'd be sort of upset. To me, any press is good press.

Stephen Malkmus

upset records people

My wife says that I changed people's lives or ways of thinking and that I should always be proud and grateful. If I'm dismissive of what we do sometimes, a little bit, she's like, "I was a fan, you changed my life," or whatever. That's what she says.

Stephen Malkmus

grateful people thinking

You know, it's people's lives, so as you get a little older, your own life narrative, I guess, invades a little more. It's not like we're traveling in separate buses to each show. It's a labor of love, so we just do it because we like it. Maybe someone's gonna move, or not want to go on a tour for some reason - that could happen, I guess.

Stephen Malkmus

narrative people moving

You can change the world, but if no one's listening, it doesn't matter.

Stephen Malkmus

matter listening world

I'm thinking, I'm singing like Ozzy Osbourne, but I don't sound like him enough, ever.

Stephen Malkmus

singing sound thinking

The narrative songs were well-written, like an article in The New Yorker. They're nice and pat. They're more like I'm just showing I can do that when I write a song like that. It's not my true calling.

Stephen Malkmus

nice writing song

Maybe I don't have the patience to make a virtue of necessity - the patience to carry something all the way through, and to actually say something. Lately, the songs are more jagged and they don't really lend themselves to that. I just take it one bit at a time.

Stephen Malkmus

virtue song way

Men are men and women are women, but the men are dumber than the women, usually.

Stephen Malkmus

men-and-women he-man men

The best I do, if I'm just playing around and riffing in a fantasy world, and then I'll write something down. Hopefully I write it down.

Stephen Malkmus

fantasy writing world

We [ Paverment] were definitely unafraid of playing wrong notes and singing wrong things. We could be fearlessly bad!

Stephen Malkmus

wrong-things notes singing

I like visual imagery in my head.

Stephen Malkmus

visual-imagery imagery visuals

When I was in high school, I was a late bloomer. And just like all those supermodels who said they were gawky and no one liked them, that was me - metaphorically. And so I was ready to rise like a phoenix in later times.

Stephen Malkmus

phoenix said school

I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head.

Stephen Malkmus

best-things made song

Usually [the lyrics] go from one word to the next word - there's no finish line. The music was that way, too.

Stephen Malkmus

next lines way

You don't realize that when you're young, and you're surprised there's a lot of people at your gig - you just think it's general British-press hype.

Stephen Malkmus

hype people thinking

What I love about music, when you can look at something and be like, "Wow, what's this all about?" You can't really picture what these people look like - is it one guy, or a band making music in a garage?

Stephen Malkmus

guy people looks

With some songs, I have written narratives or I've tried to carry it through, but generally the things that were more genius, as far as I was concerned, were not that.

Stephen Malkmus

narrative genius song