Beck

"I think it would be great to have a mall that looked like stores but you werent selling things. You were just going to hang out or do things. Or if somebody bought a mall and turned it into a house that people could kind of come to and you could build rooms, and its all orange furniture. Or you could just build environments. Reclaim a mall just in the name of aesthetics or to make something beautiful or something that has no real purpose. Wouldnt that be amazing?"

"I dont need to cry so much. I think whatever you let loose with crying, I let loose with singing. I tend to be the one who wants... Im trying to say this without sounding too touchy-feely. Im usually the one whos better at comforting the person whos crying, you know?"

"We had one night where I wanted a bunch of percussion noises at the end of song. We went into this room with three cases of percussion. Everybody just grabbed different shakers and things and was just throwing them around. A few of the guys in the band got a little carried away and I just remember looking up and somebody was running into a wall. Another guy was leaping head first about three of four feet in the air. But other than that it was pretty sedated."

"Im not good at the protocols of dating. [laughs] Im not really experienced in that. My girlfriend is my second or third girlfriend. I think in the past none of us really knew when we were "dating"-we were just hanging out and doing things. I didnt go to high school so I missed the prom."

"I never really had them. I always get the eccentric kids who dress funny and sit and write poetry for three months in their bedrooms... ...I was going to see tons of shows when I was a teenager, so if I was a girl, would that have made me a groupie? If I wanted to shake Thurston Moores hand or something?"

"I have a fear of heights, so falling off something very tall. But Ive conquered a good amount of my fears. I guess most people would have the fear of getting up in front of a large audience of people and making a fool of themselves. Ive gotten over that."

"About a year ago, I started seeing these ads in the paper for Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation. First it was a little ad. The next week, it was twice as big. And after a month, it was a full page-it just took over. Something in that triggered a bunch of associations and projections. Like, what kind of activities do you have to engage in to get to the point where you need to bring a laser into the equation?"

"Youd have to be a total idiot to say, Im the slacker-generation guy. This is my generation. Id be laughed out of the room in an instant. I didnt even connect [Loser] at all to that kind of message until they were playing it on the radio and I heard it, and they said "This is the slacker anthem," and I thought, Oh shit, that sucks. Its not some anguished transcendental cry of a generation. Its just sitting in someones living room eating pizza and Doritos."

"I try not to obsess about recording. Im definitely the one who will leave all the mistakes-to have that balance between whats undone and done. I try to move on to the next thing. I have friends who have been working on the same song for five, six years. They just wont let the songs go."

"There are so many elements flying in so many different directions that you really have to go with what feels like instinctively. The nature of the universe is fairly whimsical and nonsensical. In the most somber, beatific peacefulness theres complete chaos and maniacal laughter. I think music that doesnt reflect that is boring."

"Oh, the tragedy and the anguish. You just gotta Rage Against the Appliance, man. The toast is burning and you just gotta rip it out and free it before it fills the house with smoke. Rage Against the Toaster."

"I recently saw The Last American Virgin, one of those early-80s coming-of-age movies. And the actors, they look like kids you grew up with! Todays teen movies, I didnt know anybody who looked like that. The standards now are so unbelievably high."