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" Metal has its own code of cool, but it's not really trying to be cool. And that was very refreshing to me, that metal is very much about expressing something that seems awesome to you even if, at the time, much of the world was going to mock and reject it. "

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" There's the dual challenge of wanting to speak from an authentic place, and then being able to be honest about it. Even in the most mannered art, I think that's what people value, is a voice that comes from a real place. "

John Darnielle

Value

Art

Challenge

" My songs tend to sprint toward some epiphany and then explode. "

" You always feel like your 18-year-old self in some sense. And that's what walking through New York on a June evening feels like - you feel like it's Friday, and you're 17 years old. "

" People think of me as a nice person because, I think, I have grown into a nice person. "

John Darnielle

People

Nice

" I think 'The Sunset Tree' is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important. "

" I was a huge comic book fan. It's weird because the era of 'Marvel' I was into turns out to be very important in the long run, but it's not the one that anybody romanticizes. "

" I think youth will always be connected to the strongest music at the time because... I don't want to use the word 'tribal,' but there was this sort of familial affiliation that people would feel with the music they were listening to. "

" I still can't manage to keep a journal, and people have been telling me to since the fourth grade. "

John Darnielle

Still

People

" People do all sorts of things impulsively and follow those impulses into strange places. "

John Darnielle

Strange

People

" At 23, you can completely, literally reinvent yourself if you want to. "

" Most of 'All Hail West Texas' was written during orientation at a new job I had. I had basically worked this job before, I knew this stuff, so I was writing lyrics in the margins of all the Xeroxed material. "

" I always assumed people wanted to hear me tell stories, but then I had 'The Sunset Tree.' It turned out, my own stories were the ones that registered with people the hardest. "

John Darnielle

Own

People

" To me, creative work is labor, like any other kind of labor. It's got value, and it takes your time, and it's useful to people, depending. "

" I hang out and sign records for an hour or two hours every night, and I like to hear as many people's stories as I can, because if somebody wants to share their story with me, I want to honor that. "

" A song is fire. You react to it primally, instantly. You don't have to decide whether you like it, and you don't really have to sit down and think about it much after you're done listening to it. It really does run through you like wind. "

" People like to say how much they like stuff, but with 'The Sunset Tree,' people shared stories about what it meant for them. And that stuff's so humbling and amazing. "

John Darnielle

Amazing

People

" Your intelligence doesn't override your desire to destroy yourself. "

" To me, the only good reason to be touring is if you still have something good to share instead of just revisiting past glories. "

" It's not my style to be thinking about what a record is while I'm making it: I just write songs. "

" I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun. But I really love Durham more than any place I've ever been; some small towns can be really provincial and strangling, but Durham is the best city in the world. "

" I think I am a religious person just by nature. I think I sort of view everything through the lens of some inner undying thing in people that drives them to act as they do or to feel ashamed of not acting in some other way. "

" To me, everything is always new. People involved in my personal life make fun of me a lot for not being jaded. "

John Darnielle

Fun

Life

" Most of my interests in terms of writing are dark, so it's discordant how much I try to lock into the vibe of wherever I'm at. Inhabiting the life of the imagination is the nature of survival strategy - you build yourself little worlds to enjoy. "

" If I go see a band, and they play, like, zero from any of their old albums, I'm very happy about that. I do not want to see the bands of my youth playing the songs of my youth. I hate that. "