Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Joseph Malkmus is an American musician best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the indie rock band Pavement. He currently performs with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth30 May 1966
CitySanta Monica, CA
CountryUnited States of America
morning stuff remember
It's normally in the morning, just playing around. And I'm not saying everything I make is great, but that's what I do. I can't even remember how I wrote stuff.
song narrative genius
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.
song nice writing
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.
hero mean writing
With lyrics for me, it's usually musically-based. It's not really poetry- or writer-based. It's rock-based. It doesn't mean that I'm aping rock lyrics, but I'm writing from a music standpoint. I'm thinking more of music heroes, if they're in my mind. Not William Blake or John Ashbury. Sometimes maybe I thought of him a little bit. Or Wallace Stevens. I don't even really fully understand either of them.
blessed bragging
I'm better when I'm an autodidact and things just come. Or you're just blessed. I'm not bragging or anything, it just comes to you.
attitude important bits
Lyrics are back, maybe. It seems like there was a bit of an attitude that lyrics are not important.
real rocks mirrors
So much of rock lyrics is just a mirror of real feeling. It doesn't feel dangerous to me. They just feel like "rock lyrics."
space littles pixies
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.
song too-much add
I just imagine that every song in and of itself is great, but when you add them all up, it's too much of me maybe.
giving opinion give-me
Basically, no one else gives me any opinions on lyrics. I don't ask for them. If they did, I would listen.
mean taste levels
Оur music, it's an acquired taste. It's almost cult, even at our level. It can mean nothing to somebody and it can mean everything to somebody else.
grateful thinking 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.
paradigm paradigm-shift ifs
If there can be some paradigm shift thing that you can be part of, that's cool.
fun people dumb
Some people, they've had a lot of fun, even if it was dumb fun and a shitty body of work.