Jonny Greenwood Quotes

There’s the soundtrack to The French Connection II’I think It’s my favorite soundtrack. It hasn’t been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music.

The rest of the band were basically friends, So it was me following them around and begging them to let me be in their band for two or three years. And they finally let me in on the harmonica, actually, and then the keyboards, and finally the guitar.

Right now my mind is on the people who stole our instruments, and, specifically, the person with my guitar, which will no doubt end its days having Green Day songs worked out on it. A better fate was deserved – and while the reverence given to guitars annoys me, I shall miss it.

Presented with a song like Exit Music, It’s impossible to know what to add without actually making it worse. How can you play along when It’s already there?

Obviously there will be a backlash. If you believe the hype you have to believe a backlash too. Any criticism we get, is always stuff we’ve already criticised ourselves.

No, I am not interested in women or s*x or anything.

It’s what the Pixies always said about music – they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it.

It’s like that scene from The Player when they talk about merging Star Wars and Kramer vs. Kramer, or whatever. You could do that with music and it would just be awful.

It’s kind of not about the quality of the art, as much as this is what I love doing and I’d have a worse time doing anything else. That’s kind of as far as I think in terms of philosophy.

I’m quite into listening to music and not doing anything else.

I was just very conscious that I could either bore people by having the music be similar for too long, or I could just wear them out and bore them in a different way by having it changing too much every minute or two minutes. So, there was that kind of balance to get right.

I think It’s a bit of a disappointment that a lot of people’s Golden Age of music is still the ’60s.

I think it should be ambitious and good music does deal with life and art and all these wonderful things.

I suppose, counting back, if the Beatles had been influenced by music in the same length of time ago – you’d have to put that into better English for me, thank you – they would have been like a banjo orchestra. They would have been doing show tunes.

I suppose subconsciously I was thinking in terms of having the scale of it matching the scale of the images. Hence the sort of string quartet, jazz band and electronic stuff.

I suppose all of us – we have the old Protestant work ethic of feeling guilty when you’re not working, and getting a buzz from feeling like you’re really busy. That’s the reason to sort of carry on.

I remember when I was in my late teens just getting rid of lots of records, realizing I only ever listened to them when I was reading, or watching TV, or doing something else.

I can remember soundtracks that you just can’t separate from the film – It’s just so intertwined, so important. Like the Hitchcock ones where they kind of inform each other and become this larger thing as a result.

 But over a period of time It’s the melodic things that are in my head all day.

Everything I do feels like It’s going to end up being in Radiohead.