“Music is something that pulls everyone together, and it’s pretty much the only way that you can communicate even if you can’t talk to each other. So it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what language you speak, what your social background or racial background– it doesn’t matter; that all kind of disappears when you go to a gig and your standing next to all these different people and you’re enjoying the same music. It unites everyone.”  –Ben Lovett (Mumford & Sons)

“You connect with records in very personal and very meaningful ways. All my favorite records are those that, for whatever reason, stuck to my soul. They helped me through something…There are records that you just sink into. They coincide with what you’re going through and become an ally. If our records do that for people, that’s the greatest compliment I could ever receive. That’s one of the reason’s making music is so important to me, because there is a very strange emotional reach. For me– more than book, movie, or other things– music is like a mainline to your heart.”   –Matt Berninger (The National)

“If I’m not mistaken, life aches. “It’s like when I hear flamenco, I like it when those women go [he imitates a wail]. I didn’t wake up one day and go, ‘Hey, I’m going to sing like I’m nearly crying’. It’s just that that’s how it makes me feel.”
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I think that art gets really good when you need to do it…I could drive a truck again, and I’d survive, but my soul wouldn’t survive. I need this music for my soul to make sense.”  –Billy McCarthy (Augustines)

“My aim as a songwriter is to appeal to your subconscious first. A song can be cerebrally satisfying second, but first of all it has to feel right.” –Nick Mulvey

“Let’s live in an enormous world of sound we can use randomly, with no rules at all. Let’s play with sound, forget all knowledge and instrumental skills, and just use instinct ” –Yann Tierson 

“I guess the story (personal account behind her song, ‘Avant Gardener’) had a silver lining. Everyone forgets they have their own quite interesting stories themselves, even though they might think they’re not. It’s down to the details, the things people relate to…People fixate on the exciting, hot now things. I never follow magazines and movies and all that stuff. I like being at home – I’m that kind of person.”  –Courtney Barnett

“I just want to help people feel connected to something; people who don’t know how to communicate their emotions or who feel like they’re not understood.” – Sharon Van Etten

Yeah, most of the stuff [is] things that I’ve been still working through for the last two years of trying to have a career but also trying to have a home life and relationship. And you know, in the end, I had to choose my work over having a relationship because the person I was with couldn’t handle it. It was someone that I loved very deeply, but it just plays on people’s insecurities when you’re in a place that they’re not. And that’s kinda what that song is about, what the whole record’s about……I’m really a total goofball that likes rocking out to other people’s music. I write what comes naturally and I’m trying to show more of my lighter side, because I don’t want people to worry. I want them to know I’m alright. My mom always asks ‘I thought you were happy!’ and I’m like ‘I am happy! I wrote these songs so I could be happy….I have a hard time not wearing my heart on my sleeve and answering people honestly. You know, my friends warn me that I should be more guarded ‘cause sometimes I am too honest and open, but it’s also just who I am. I don’t like to hold back. Especially with who I am and what I do, it’s all me, everything’s my name, it’s what I do, it’s how I feel, it’s what I think. Over the last two years, I’m beginning to think that what I do is kind of self-centered, you know? And I’ve been contemplating doing something else after a couple of years, ‘cause it’s all me. It’s almost like, why do people care about me?” –Sharon Van Etten (about her new album, ‘Are we There?’)

“I’m very into writing things down, definitely.  I’ve got this thing where I can’t bear not to write things down so I write everything in there.  I like to write about my feelings mostly.  I know that sounds quite typical, but I like to think I’m quite a sensitive person about my own emotions and other people’s. Alot of my songs are about coming to terms with emotions, especially the first time you feel them.  It’s like a documentation of that, a diary.  I guess a lot of my songs are like that.” –Rae Morris

“…And all you want is something to believe in… for a little bit. And we’re here tonight because of music. And music’s a funny thing because you can’t fucking own it. It doesn’t exist. It’s just matter. You can’t hold onto it. It’s a moment. This is your moment with music. And we’re sharing this moment with you right now through our music and we really appreciate it. We all need something to believe in and I want to tell you something tonight: at the end of this tour, I’ve been waiting my whole fucking life for this.” -Billy McCarthy of Augustines

“It’s about change…about the changes you go through..musically, personally, metaphorically…knowing that you have to change if you are going through a tough time in your life and if you are just hitting walls constantly, or you keep having bold spiritual questions that you can’t answer…it’s usually because their isn’t a path for you…you’re not on that path…and REPAVE is just IT.” -Justin Vernon of Volcano Choir (spoken about the meaning behind the album, Repave)