Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevensis an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He first came to wider recognition with the 2000 album, A Sun Came, which was released on the Asthmatic Kitty label he co-founded with his stepfather. He is perhaps best known for his 2005 album, Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth1 July 1975
CountryUnited States of America
We stayed a long, long time, to see you, to meet you, to see you at last.
I think musicians should stay off television generally.
Art is … a reflection of a greater divine creation. There really is no separation.
We live in community, and we're created in community. We're created out of the unity of two people, and then we're made into a family. It's just inherent in who we are.
My music is just about story telling. I don't have much to say, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just singing through conviction about what I love and what I care about, starting with the very small.
I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song,
I think musicians should stay off television generally. I get asked all the time. Those shows are just promoting insipid comedies. Who watches those shows? And whoever does I don't think my music would speak to those people. I don't even want those people to hear what I'm doing.
Growing up on the border there, we were always frustrated with people's pronunciations of towns in Michigan, and people mispronouncing Illinois. There are all these Native American words that no one really knows how to pronounce.
I was feeling privileged and self-conscious about my life as a musician, which feels self-absorbed. I can't help it, I am a musician. This is what I do.
It's traumatic to meditate on the availability of information through the Internet, or the way we perceive the world as a result. People don't experience things totally or viscerally anymore. It's all through representation, be it a record on YouTube or a post on a blog.
I'm from the generation that's always been recording, from the very beginning. I learned to play the guitar on the four-track. I started listening to music at a time when people were doing recording at home, when the discussion about songwriting correlated to the discussion about producing and engineering. I think that's a description of my generation.
I've always been obsessed with electronics and using computers and software. It's always been part of my vernacular.
The music is the imperative. It has the upper hand. I think all music, even though it's an abstraction, does motivate a particular meaning. Then it's the job of the musician to honor that meaning and to somehow implement lyrical material that can accommodate that emotional environment.
Life is all about toiling and labor. But obviously I get great joy in confronting challenge and taking risk.