On 'City Music', I wanted there to be grit, and I wanted it to be loose, and I wanted there to be mistakes.

Kevin Morby

Categorized in : City Mistakes Music Grit

The ideal pre-show meal I think is pho, the Vietnamese soup. It's very light and good for you, and then the broth is great for the throat.

meals light thinking

A great day on tour would be if I would say a two-hour drive, so you can wake up and you don't have to leave right away. You can go get breakfast somewhere nice that someone recommends in the town, and it turns out to be good. Then you can kind of check out the town, someone might recommend you to a cool thrift store, a record store, a nice park or something. You can have some time to yourself.

great-day wake-up nice

I had a lot of jobs in New York. I worked in a café and I did bike delivery and I was a mover. And I babysat, which was really cool in some cases and really insane in others.

insane new-york jobs

I've put out kind of a lot of albums and people seem to like it and the crowds keep getting bigger and bigger, so I think maybe I could make a life out of it.

albums people thinking

There was never a thought of career in my brain ever for anything.

I guess now I view music as my career. I want to do it forever, regardless of whether or not it's my means of living.

careers views mean

I didn't understand how to get a practice space or buy gear - I never thought I could do any of that - let alone get in front of people and play the songs.

practice play song

I was never really seeking to play music. I knew I wanted to do it, but I think I wasn't seeking it out because it seemed so abstract to me.

abstract play thinking

One of my first observations about New York that I was so fascinated with was that you'd be at a stoplight and you're with everybody; there's a homeless dude and some weird celebrity and a cop and someone who looks exactly like you. You're on foot and everyone is at street level and eye-to-eye. I think that's what's special about New York, because there's no hierarchy, there's no discrimination.

eye new-york thinking

I write all the time, and I write a lot of songs, but before I started putting out records those songs always just ended up on stuff that I did with The Babies.

writing song baby

When I first moved to New York in 2006, I spent most of my time hanging out at and going to shows at a punk house in Crown Heights called The Fort where, amongst many roommates, my friend Johnny lived. Johnny loves The Germs, the legendary L.A. punk band fronted by the late, great Darby Crash.

roommates friend great time

'Rock Bottom Riser' by Smog - I was just in Europe, and my jet lag never really went away. I wasn't sleeping very much. Then one night, my girlfriend saw a Bill Callahan show in L.A. and took a video of that song and sent it to me. I was just listening to it over and over - it was comforting.

never me song night

I had a very easy middle class upbringing and never had to worry about anything. But my parents came from nothing and from broken homes, and their stories were always very interesting.

parents nothing broken easy

My dad grew up in western Nebraska. I'd visit all the time as a kid, and it's very much like the Wild West. It felt to me like a cowboy movie. Stuff like that made me become this dreamer at a young age.

me dad age time

I'm very impressionable: I get very taken away by stories and certain feelings. With writing, sometimes I want to feel like a character.

feel writing sometimes character

When I think about the most exotic, beautiful places, Porto is at the front of my mind. It's incredible, man. You have an idea of what Europe is like as an American, and people talk about Paris, Berlin and Stockholm, which are all great, but it wasn't until I went to Porto that I felt that idea of this exotic, beautiful, timeless place.

you man beautiful people

I'm a really big Fiona Apple fan, and more times than not, when I put her on in the car, people are surprised. I think they associate her less as a songwriter and more as a '90s MTV generation artist.

generation think car people

My hair - it's baby thin and feathery and drives me crazy no matter what I do with it. It's weird because you see people with thicker hair that just kind of stays put, but if I'm in any sort of weather, I look like Bill Murray in 'Kingpin' when it starts to all come unleashed.

me you crazy people

Anytime I'm locked out of somewhere with another person, I can usually pick the lock successfully. And then I feel like James Bond.

bond person feel i-can

I feel like 'Harlem River' was me putting one foot out the door of New York, and 'Still Life' is between Point A and Point B. It's the grey area.

river feel me life