Passion Quotes

I was always a singer. I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some children sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio - the BBC or Radio Luxembourg - or watching them on TV and in the movies.

It's heartening to return to live music, heartening for people like me in a band. It's a very traditional thing to return to. It re-validates the original form that we fell in love with.

For me, life is writing and I can do it anywhere. It doesn't matter where I am. I listen. I write. I live.

I've always had an affinity for growing things.

When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.

Soon as I could play one guitar chord and laid my ear upon that wood, I was gone. My soul was sold. Music was everything from then on.

My guitar is a mutation between a classic Fender Stratocaster guitar, which I played for years, and a Gibson solid-body like an SG or a Les Paul. It contains all sounds of the basic classic rock n' roll guitars. It does what I want it to do.

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble.

When I'm there, I'm not here. I can't talk about my singing; I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?

When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.

Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre, just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now?

I don't have to perform to stay in the public eye anymore. I really don't. I am who I am and what I do on musical stage these days really makes no difference at all. I already have all the momentum there. I am only doing it because I love to do it.

I play the songs, and we're doing it live, and everything happens, and then we capture it like that. Rick is a genius. It's so easy, because he loves music. You're not gonna find a person who loves music more than Rick. He's dedicated to preserving it.

I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water.

Those minutes that I'm on stage are the best! Being there and looking at the crowd and seeing their faces, hearing them sing the positive words from the songs.

Music is what I breathe, what I love to do. It keeps me alive.

I know I am pretentious, but I'd be the first person to tell you that. And I'm not apologising, because I'm bored of indie bands that are terrified of doing anything that could be perceived as aspirational, so they don't affect the status quo of their little cliquey band world.

I'm never not going to have my work, because I am my work. I don't have any removal from The 1975 and me, and I don't find that complicated.

I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.

And, we have no such thing as a budget anymore. Our manager freaks when we show him the bill. We're lavish to the bone, but all our money goes back into the product.