Phil Elverum Quotes

Phil Elverum

Profession : Musician

Birth : May 23, 1978

The Beach Boys were my favorite. I use to listen to their hits over and over, especially 'In My Room' and 'Don't Worry Baby.' There's something really sad about 'Don't Worry Baby.' Even though it's just a California song about racing cars, the melody is really sad. There's melancholy in it.

Phil Elverum

My first band was called Nubert Circus, a very embarrassing, dumb name. It means nothing. We were kind of grunge. I would say we were more funny punk, a lot of songs about food and stuff like that.

Phil Elverum

The universe is chaotic and meaningless, and it's good to laugh about it. That's my stance on life, actually. Some people go through life grinding their teeth, suffering and banging their head against the wall. I'm glad that's not the reaction that occurs in me.

Phil Elverum

I've sort of accidentally put myself in this position where I opened up the story of my life, and of course people want to reciprocate and open up to me. I'm OK at it, I don't make people feel worse, but it's strange to find myself in this role, all of a sudden, that I never would have pursued.

Phil Elverum

I'm singing these songs about death and stuff. I see somebody who's, like, in their sixties or seventies at the show, and I'm like, 'Yeah, sure. Fair enough.'

Phil Elverum

I grew up without religion, but my parents have always been somewhat mystical about nature: The mountain is looking at us, stuff like that.

Phil Elverum

Profound thoughts and profound experiences get revealed to be tricks that we play on ourselves, and poetry gets revealed to be just, like, some dumb words that somebody put in an interesting order.

Phil Elverum

I don't get to make many choices in my life as a single parent.

Phil Elverum

It's easy to get swept up in the day to day ridiculous things that are in the news. They're not meaningless, they're legitimate and worth being engaged with. But it's easy to get overwhelmed and swept up and forget what real life feels like.

Phil Elverum

I used to have a musical group with a girlfriend called The Thunderclouds. It was like a Beach Boys cover band. And we would just figure out Beach Boy songs - break 'em into two-part harmonies. And, you know, we played a couple of shows around Olympia. It was very fun.

Phil Elverum

Nirvana was happening when I was 14, kind of the perfect age. Growing up in Anacortes, Washington, it was close enough to Seattle that it seemed like a local thing.

Phil Elverum

I got into Nirvana, and it was my sort of awakening into the idea that music could be like rough and crazy and local. And so I started to realize that there were bands playing in my town, Anacortes.

Phil Elverum

Music is only good sometimes.

Phil Elverum

After many days of grocery store food, sitting down for a deliberate, slow, expensive eating time can be the best.

Phil Elverum

It has happened a few times that I've found myself in a surprise mid-tour recording session.

Phil Elverum

Recording and touring are totally separate universes for me and it's strange and refreshing when they invade each other momentarily.

Phil Elverum

I buy some black metal records kind of blindly, and I end up really liking maybe 30% of them. There's a lot of duds, for me at least, in black metal. I have kind of picky tastes about it.

Phil Elverum

I'm mostly fine with anyone using my music for whatever. Everything's just compost that gets reused.

Phil Elverum

I never want to keep doing the same thing more than once, honestly.

Phil Elverum

I'm open to making any kind of music, or maybe making no music ever again. That's also an option, always. Who knows what'll happen.

Phil Elverum