Grimes quotes

I know texture is really important, but I think texture and stuff precedes songwriting a lot of the time these days.

Sometimes you find people who are magnetic, but once they get in front of a camera, they freak out and get weird.

I listen to a lot of medieval music.

You rarely find someone who sings really well and who produces really well; it's a problem, and I just think it's a missing link in the music scene.

The way that you present yourself visually totally dictates your audience and everything that anyone thinks about you.

Lets make it known that we don't want to give away our beautiful homeland to corporate interests. It is our right as Canadians to be part of these decisions. The only thing standing between this world and environmental catastrophe is us

Whenever I'm making music I'm always waiting for the shivers to happen - that's an important thing for me.

I'm so sick of my own music that I don't know if I can edit another video, which involves hundreds of hours of listening to your own song again and again and again. It becomes so grating after a while.

I love a lot of very sentimental music, but I shouldn't necessarily be the person who makes it.

Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be.

I write music better in the winter, I prefer making music when it's dark.

Just because something might not have a deep philosophical meaning doesn't mean it's not important or relevant.

I have a lot of Japanese friends: I grew up in Vancouver, and there's this huge Japanese population over there.

If I went on 'American Idol,' I would definitely be kicked out immediately.

If painters could be compared to filmmakers, Bosch is the Hype Williams of renaissance painters. With Bosch, there's always a narrative that is very nonlinear - and that's the essence of a good music video.

Fashion can be a really powerful tool, but it's also a place where you can be totally humiliated and have your power taken from you.

If I think about what other people are thinking when I'm making music, I just can't do it. It's too withheld - I need to go totally over the top, and then kind of clean it up a bit and make it more reasonable after the fact.

I definitely see the voice as an instrument: It makes great drums, great synth pads, great everything.

It takes me probably about four hours to get into the groove [with making music]. And it's really important for me to not break the groove.

There aren't many other labels who I can say are that successful, and can give me as much as 4AD gives me, and still have such a great roster.

I just can't perform well unless I'm wearing jeans.

If you focus too much on development of the visual angle, it could be a detriment to what you're doing musically.

One thing with Montreal is it's so cold and everyone's so poor and beer's so cheap: if you go to a show you have to brave the weather to get there. So you show up and everyone's soaking wet - there's a sense of 'I trekked through three feet of snow to get here!' I think there's a kind of camaraderie that arises out of that, that's important to me as well.

I prefer making videos to making music.

I only work at night, generally. Usually when I work [during the day] I'll black out the windows or something.

I want to make Grimes a high-fashion sci-fi act.

From an early age I knew I would be unhappy if I wasn't doing something creative.

The last thing I think about when I'm making music is its reception.

Mariah Carey is my favorite singer because her voice sounds utterly groundless. It's not even a human voice; it almost sounds mechanical.

Lately I've been really into screaming a lot through delay [effects], having seven people on stage topless going crazy, stuff like that. Really in your face, but maybe more organic than choreographed dance moves.

It's kind of like I'm Phil Spector and I'm forcing a young girl to make pop music and perform exhaustively. Except, instead of it being someone else, that girl is also me.

I'm sad that it's uncool or offensive to talk about environmental or human rights issues.

I feel like gender lines are changing. A couple of years ago, it wasn't nearly as OK for guys to like girly-sounding music. But all of a sudden a lot of my guys friends who would like have been really disdainful of female singers are way more accepting.

Obviously, I like things that are cute and aggressive at the same time, but I didn't want it to just be mini-bangs and lip-syncing in a dress. I need to get away from that stuff.

I always wanted to be really experimental.

It's important for people not to feel like doing things that are immature, stuff you have to try out when you're a teenager, is bad, per se. Demonizing it is one of the reasons it becomes such an issue.

I want to say my life inspires my lyrics, but I also try to abstract them as much as possible because I don't want to refer to my life explicitly. I'm definitely really embarrassed by my lyrics.

I cry really easily. If I see a butterfly, I'll practically burst into tears. So it's really hard for me to yell at people, because I'll feel so guilty about it. But if I don't, then they don't take me seriously and it's this endless cycle.

I grew up going to punk shows, that kind of thing - I don't wanna make pop punk! - but I like the idea of people going totally crazy and it being really intimate, loud and super-aggressive, but combining that with pop music.

It's really hard to be on stage and packing your gear when people who just saw you play are in the room, because they all just want to talk to you.

As a producer, I'm trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality - not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.

Usually when I make music, in my head I'm like 'this isn't Grimes, this is just some other project that you can release later, so there's no pressure and it doesn't matter and no-one's ever gonna hear it'.

I don't even wear shoes with heels because I hate making a noise when I walk and people looking at me.

I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They're the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa.

Even though I really admire what Beyonce does, and she's probably got one of the best live shows in the world - honestly! - that's so not my style.

When an artist, or whomever, moves from their scene to the bigger pond, it starts getting crazy, because all of a sudden people don't respect you, and you have to start being a lot more aggressive than you would normally be.

If I'll be sexualized, it wouldn't be because I was wearing sexy clothes, because I look like a baby. But music is an inherently sexual thing. If something sexual is going to be expressed, it's going to be in my music.

I approach music - and this sounds crazy - as though I'm Phil Spector, and I'm cranking out these pop stars and forcing them to do all this stuff - except they're all me. But I'm not, like, transgendered.

I don't think I know anyone who has a steady job in Montreal.

I think a lot of music that's really innovative is not even considered because it was made by people who had a sexual image. And people assume that it's a commodified thing, so it can't be "indie."

I grew up with four brothers, and in the back of my head I feel pretty masculine. It's always funny when I hear recordings of my voice, because it's so deep when I hear it in my head.

Most of my music videos were made for under $200.

Success, for me, is a song that can deliver shivers.

I love humanity, I love the way people look

I don't know if I would ever have costume changes - usually I just end up taking off my shoes, I get so sweaty, and... I just need to be comfortable.

I can't censor myself; it's really important for me to say how I feel.

I get offers to do huge-budget music videos with big production companies all the time, but I have no interest.

I think one of the reasons I'm successful as a musician is that the first like 30 shows I played, I played with no monitors standing in front of guitar amps in a shitty, smoky warehouse where people were screaming and wasted, knocking over my gear. So shows after that seem pretty easy!

Ugly girls generally don't become successful in music. And it sucks because it's a standard that just exists.

I love pop music, but I also love noise music, IDM - anything really, I get something out of most kinds of music. I just need to enjoy the process.

I was raised in a Catholic household and went to a Catholic school, and my childhood brain perceived medieval Catholicism as an action movie: There's this crazy omnipresent guy who can destroy you at any moment.

My manager lives on my block; four of the apartments in my apartment complex of seven are people I know. It's a really close-knit community, and almost everyone on these few blocks are artists or graphic designers, because we live right on the cusp of a warehouse district.

I'm a very unhealthy person, and Montreal is very cold, and I'm usually sick when I'm there.

I think Canadians make a lot of music because we're stuck inside all the time.

I think the internet is kind of redefining what it is to be a teenager. Because there's a lot of media that's aimed at teenagers that other people are getting into. But, conversely, pornography or stuff that's intended for adults is completely readily available to anyone, like teenagers.

I'm just very obsessed with Japanese stuff in general.

I believe the human mind is a very fallible thing, but it's the only thing that I can really know, I guess.

You don't just have to be influenced by rock, or goth, anymore. It's okay to say, 'My influences are Tin Pan music from Bali and Rihanna.' There are still so many combinations that haven't been done yet.

Removing all stimulation around you is a really positive thing in terms of stimulating your creativity.

The most valuable live thing for me is when people look like they're having a good time.

Miami is just really fun whenever I go there. It's like this post-apocalyptic Barbie world: everything is pink, and there're palm trees everywhere. But then there are also all these people in crazy sunglasses, warehouses with sick parties where all the girls are covered in spikes and black leather. It's a very weird place.

I find it really hard to throw myself into something artistically where I'm making up a whole character and finding something for that character to do.

I just watched another person I care deeply about basically turn into Gollum and my heart is broken.

I like being behind the camera because I can control perception and what people see.

The groove can go for like three days - once I'm in it it will just keep going until I'm totally exhausted. But that's how I like to work, I like to be away from everyone and just get in the zone, and stay there for as long as I can keep it there.

In America there's lot of cool cities, but in Canada there's, like, well, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax may be cool, but they're so expensive. Montreal is the only city that's affordable but also has buses and culture.

I would never go to a studio. I need my space, you know what I mean? I need to be able to chain smoke and pace about, cry and like... spit. Just make noise, make a huge mess. I also feel like if I was concerned for the cost of the studio - like, 'this is costing 40 dollars an hour' - I wouldn't be able to work.

I think you can hear, when you listen to someone's music, whether or not they're enjoying making it - it's so great to hear music where you can tell the person making it was just having a blast. That's really important to me as far as my process goes. That's probably why my music ends up being so poppy!

By the time I'm 50, there is probably going to be a nuclear holocaust. I should just enjoy myself.

My great fear is that I'm the ultimate shallow person. I think about this kind of thing a lot, and about this phenomenon in our culture where people identify themselves with their interests. I've been trying not to think about it too much. It used to really upset me when people called me "witch house."

I've never lived outside of Canada, so I've been really cold my entire life. Most of my memories are coloured by the fact that I was really cold, just... all the time!

I have an intense desire to constantly make music, and I don't feel that way about anything else.

If you look at the way people behave at shows, icons are now musicians; they are the people that we worship.

I think my music's kind of cold, but I don't know if it's related to the weather. It might be because it's always grey [in Montreal], it's very depressing.

I like performing, but I usually get really sick when I'm on tour, and it's just hard.

I don't have any money to hire actors. I just need to get people who are going to do a good job being themselves.

Basically, I'm really impressionable and have no sense of consistency in anything I do.

I usually like to get people in because I don't have a band or anything. In cities where I have friends, I try to get them to come out and dance for me.

I like creating beauty out of scary things.

I'm tired of being congratulated for being thin because I can more easily fit into sample sizes from the runway.

I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living.

If you tell someone you're doing something innovative, they'll think you're doing something innovative.

I like going crazy. And not just for art - I like extremes in general.

I don't own anything designer.

I have a really weird relationship with myself where I'll say, "Do it, do it!" and then, "I don't want to do it anymore, I hate photo shoots, I'm so tired of this!" Or, "I wrote a song, and you're gonna sing it!" then, "I can't hit the note." I want to be a behind-the-scenes producer. I really hate being in front of people. But I'm also obsessed with becoming a pop star.

I definitely see the voice as an instrument: It makes great drums, great synth pads, great everything. Vocals can be so many things, like, "Hey, I'm Michael Jackson, and this is my iconic voice," or a choir of people sounding like Mozart's Requiem. Mariah Carey is my favorite singer because her voice sounds utterly groundless. It's not even a human voice; it almost sounds mechanical.

Especially with music, people want confidence.

When I'm making something I need it to be catchy - I need it to hit the sweet spot.

I can tell really early on in a painting if I'm going to toss it or not.