Dan Deacon famous quotes

06-09-2025

I just wanted to make a record that wasn't escapism. Like, I didn't want to write another record that was devoid of meaningful content.
-- Dan Deacon

#Meaningful #Writing #Records
I need to start honing in on projects that I want to devote my time to and not put my energies into the unattainable ones.
-- Dan Deacon

#Energy #Needs #Unattainable
I throw ideas out into the open when I really should just be writing them down in a journal.
-- Dan Deacon

#Writing #Ideas #Should
If you've become a huge act and you're still doing the same music you wrote with your friends when you were making zero dollars, you're lazy.
-- Dan Deacon

#Zero #Lazy #Dollars
I wanted to start working on something that had a lasting effect.
-- Dan Deacon

#Lasting #Wanted
You know, most people called rap stupid when it started, and it was one of the most innovative music forms of its time.
-- Dan Deacon

#Stupid #Rap #People
It was never the goal to be a solo performer. It was just something that made the most sense at the time.
-- Dan Deacon

#Goal #Made #Solo
I've since become really good at overwhelming myself.
-- Dan Deacon

#Overwhelming
For the last three years, I've been working on 'Bromst,' and that's all that encompassed my brain. And now that it's out, it will change the way that I think musically.
-- Dan Deacon

#Thinking #Years #Brain
The main thing I want to do is make people feel more connected and more active.
-- Dan Deacon

#People #Want #Feels
It's weird how people hate getting older.
-- Dan Deacon

#Hate #People #Getting Older
I think there is going to be a large paradigm shift in a few years, and it could either be to a new age of enlightenment and unity and we'll be raised to a new level of consciousness, or it could be a return to a dark age of kings and mass, open oppression followed by a die-off of human culture.
-- Dan Deacon

#Dark #Thinking #Unity
I think living in Baltimore and being a part of the community and trying to be part of as many communities as possible within the city, the best thing that anyone can do in Baltimore is just to be a part of it and contribute to it and to not see it as...A lot of people from outside the city see this city for its blight and I feel like people who live within the city do the opposite and see this city for what defines it as, in my mind, the most beautiful place to live.
-- Dan Deacon

#Beautiful #Thinking #People
I'm often just writing just to write. I'm not writing with...If I write, like, sitting down with a goal in mind, it's always, like, the worst. It turns into a ska song even if I'm trying to write like a horror movie sound track or something.
-- Dan Deacon

#Song #Writing #Goal
Email is a mind-killer. Like, I really think getting a smartphone is the worst move I ever did in being a musician because while we've just been talking my phone's vibrated like 15 times and I only get push notifications for like two apps, so either like a bunch of houses are going up for sale right now or someone's like, "Why aren't you emailing me back?" It's just hard to stay in the moment. I can understand why people go to retreats to write and stuff like that but I don't have the time.
-- Dan Deacon

#Moving #Writing #Thinking
Obviously, selling out is an issue but it's almost like an uncanny valley where you can be pretty unpopular for a while but you'll have die-hard fans that love you. Then as you get more popular, it'll be great and people will be excited for you and then you get to this middle-level popularity and people are like, "Oh, you're not famous but you're also not - we know who you are." You're just this like hideous disfigured music.
-- Dan Deacon

#Love You #People #Excited
It's hard not to sell out because once, you know, I grew up with working-class parents who definitely, definitely would be disappointed if I didn't take particular jobs being like, "What are you talking about? I would have worked years for that money in like, actual physical labor." So there's a privilege to not selling out. You already have to be in a position where you can look at that money and not care about it.
-- Dan Deacon

#Parent #Care #Selling
I think the hardest part is figuring out what to say no to because the whole start of your career is just begging anybody to let you perform or to contribute music to something. Then it's like turning on a faucet because the moment it's on, people are like, "Oh, you can do stuff? All right. Well, you want to do it every single thing?
-- Dan Deacon

#Thinking #People #Moments
I do subscribe to the 2012 theory, but regardless of the date, it's hard not to notice that humans are polluting the earth with humans, that soon it'll be difficult to get water to people and find land to grow food on. The infrastructures that hold up cities are going to be harder to maintain, and the resources that make it possible are going to be harder to find. I'm not even talking about oil; I'm talking about, like, steel.
-- Dan Deacon

#Water #People #Earth
That's tangent, but I like the strategizing and thinking about how things are going to fall and thinking of different ways to engage with fans. Ultimately, the goal is for the music to be heard by as many people as possible.
-- Dan Deacon

#Fall #Thinking #Goal
Going back to the paradigm we live in, the only way to do music is if I can sustain living off of it. If I can't live off of it, I'm not going to be able to make as much music.
-- Dan Deacon

#Music Is #Paradigm
You can have a table full of gourmet food, but the minute you put a box of Entenmann's doughnuts out, that's all people are gonna talk about.
-- Dan Deacon

#People #Doughnut
I really do like seeing other people perform my music. It's one of the most rewarding things for me, so it's worth the extra work.
-- Dan Deacon

#People #Extras
I think as this generation of electronic musicians goes on, popular electronic music will be more and more accepted. It's gonna get less confusing. You know, most people called rap stupid when it started, and it was one of the most innovative music forms of its time.
-- Dan Deacon

#Stupid #Rap #Thinking
To get large groups of people to dance, there needs to be something accessible about the music. The beat can't be too esoteric, but unless we're talking about prog or etherealist composition, I think there's something simplistic about most music. What's completely insane to me is that people would consider music that's simple to be dumbed-down. Couldn't simplicity be a deliberate, smart choice? Those people aren't really listening; they're judging a song off of a beat, off of a pulse.
-- Dan Deacon

#Song #Smart #Simple

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