Each member does whatever they want with the song and it totally changes it from whatever idea I hear around it. It turns it into a Sonic Youth song and completely away from it being a solo song.
Every now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music.
I never go back and listen to the recorded document. The thrill comes when the balance can be attained. Everyone in the room can have a shared, communal rock experience.
I really want to do a book on the history of the no-wave music scene in New York, how it extended out and formed lots of other things. It was such a great visual culture.
I wanted to hear the songs in the way that I had written them, which was very basic. All I wanted was drums and another guitar, and I was just going to sing.
I was surrounded by nature and trying to come to terms with this blissful nature versus the inhumane mentality of war. People were being deluded by someone using the word peace.
It's American Alternative radio stations that bug me. We're considered Alternative, but don't expect us to be played next to Blink 182 and Offspring. We're hardly of that generation.
It's hard for bands to stick it out because people grow up, and it never really pays off. If you're looking for some sort of payoff, it's not gonna happen.
Lyric writing is an interesting process in Sonic Youth. There's three people writing now, and we've all had a lot of interest and involvement with expression through words.
Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band. because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry.
