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
I believe that music is a spiritual language. My everyday self is pretty mundane and boring, but when I'm making music it allows for me to communicate a kind of transcendence that I can't communicate otherwise.
I'm not beholden to the public, and neither are the public beholden to me or my songs. I'm very much of a populist on those terms, I believe that the song is no longer mine anyway. I like to process the dispossession that happens when you play something live. I don't have a clue as to how these songs are going to plan out, whether they're going to be on a record. I don't know yet.
Love is unconditional and incomprehensible. And I believe it's possible to love absent of mutual respect.
I think I get a lot of ideas from when I was a kid, listening to Casey Kasem's 'American Top 40.'
I still feel like I have a lot to learn in the realm of sound experimentation, and I think I would like things to get noisier and weirder and more distressed and more aggressive, but I don't know if that's something that would be suitable for public consumption.
I was working on several states simultaneously. The tone of the music for Illinois seemed much more exciting and challenging to me. The music itself seemed to evoke a very big character.
It's really about a sensory experience and getting fully involved and fully entrenched in the pageantry of Illinois.
It's really about a sensory experience and getting fully involved and entrenched in the pageantry of Illinois,
Oh the glory when he took our place / But he took my shoulders and he shook my face / And he takes and he takes and he takes,
Everyone seems really concerned for me now about the prospect. They use this word 'daunting' all the time.
It puts us in the attitude of respect for our audience. It's important on every level to have a kind of attitude of unification in some way. I don't have that naturally. I'm not a great performer, so we have to do everything we can, do the exercises, to prepare.
I've been trying to challenge myself to be more explicit. I've always liked punk rock and Sonic Youth. I make that music privately, but I've never released it.
program. ''It puts us in the attitude of respect for our audience. I think it's important on every level to have a kind of attitude of unification in some way. . . . I don't really have that naturally. I'm not a great performer, so we have to do everything we can, do the exercises, to prepare.
So I'm a little worried about that though I know I don't have to worry about these things in the way, I don't know, that Cher has to worry about it.