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
Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It's a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like 'emo' or 'grunge'... or 'folk music.' I think that's just language itself, trying to understand the mysteries of the world.
I think musicians should stay off television generally.
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.
My only concern about art collaborations is that I never thought of myself as an Artist. My tax forms say Musician/Songwriter.
A musician's attempt to summarize his or her work leads to all this prescriptive chatter, or what I call the 'Modifier's Madness.' A lot of adjectives working overtime.
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.