Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird
Andrew Wegman Birdis an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He was initially known through his work with the band Squirrel Nut Zippers before forming Bowl of Fire, and is now best known as a solo musician. Bird's primary instrument is the violin, but he is also proficient at other instruments including whistling, guitar, and the glockenspiel. He wrote "The Whistling Caruso" for The Muppets and performed the whistling heard in both the film and the soundtrack. Bird composed the score...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth11 July 1973
CityLake Forest, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Honestly, I didn't have the patience for biology or history in an academic sense, but I always liked the kind of big questions.
Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.
Just don't let the human factor fail to be a factor at all
Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.
Music as a social conduit has always been important to me.
I'm a terrible Scrabble player.
Well, my main instrument is violin, but I think of myself as a songwriter who happens to play violin.
There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science.
I don't get particularly precious about things like this, though. Like the record company said, "We need a radio edit that delivers the hook" - I don't even know what they consider the hook in that song ["Oh No"] - "that delivers the hook sooner." So I'm like, "Okay. I see that." And they were all walking on eggshells, like is this going to be sacrilegious to me or something, to mess with this art I've created? And I'm like, "Great. I get to tinker with it, I get to mess with my song some more."
There is something comforting about going into a practice room, putting your sheet music on a stand and playing Bach over and over again.
I think when I was pretty young I got really into the tone of my instrument and I remember just playing one note for an hour to just kind of feel the resonance of the violin.
The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter.
It's not set in stone. I like to keep it rolling and changing, and so I am like, "Great, I get to remake my song."
The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.