Elliott Smith
Elliott Smith
Steven Paul "Elliott" Smithwas an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived for much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity. Smith's primary instrument was the guitar, though he was also proficient with piano, clarinet, bass guitar, drums, and harmonica. Smith had a distinctive vocal style, characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and used multi-tracking to create vocal layers, textures, and harmonies...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth6 August 1969
CityOmaha, NE
CountryUnited States of America
Elliott Smith quotes about
I've been doing four-track songs by myself since I was like a teenager, where I'd sing in a way that I ... I just didn't think other people would like it, so I didn't play it for them but eventually I got over that, which I'm happy that I did, because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music that you don't really like as much as another kind.
You can take a picture of New York and one person looking at it will think it looks really depressing, frightening; and someone else will look at it and think of all the fun things you can do in New York. I think songs are kinda like that.
It's just that a lot of songs that are popular right now, they don't have any meaning
So if somebody writes a song that appears to have some meaning then everybody thinks that it's a really heavy song.
My girlfriend at the time convinced me to send these songs to Cavity Search. When they wanted to put out my record I was totally shocked.
Certain songs just feel a way that's hard to put into words and it's not happy and it's also not really sad but I couldn't say what it is
I walked out and Jack Nicholson was sitting about six feet away, so I avoided that area and I looked up at the balcony in the back and sang the song.
I think the suggestion that all my songs are personal is insulting because that assumes that I have a bunch of issues that I feel the need to unload on strangers. That is not the case. It also assumes that I just talk about myself the whole time which, again, is not true.
I'm just writing songs about how I feel or about how people I know feel.
I've been here all three nights. I kind of like it down here by the river.
Items like televisions and computers are considered hazardous waste. If we have to dispose of an item like that now, it isn't just a matter of putting it in the trash. It requires special handling.
I like home recordings and studio recordings just as much as each other - I don't think one is better - but for this record I wanted to see what I could do in a real studio with real producers.
Because God only knows why people like what they like and don't like something else.
They don't put any pressure on me to do anything in particular and Dreamworks didn't either so this was a really easy record to make.