Ariel Pink Quotes & Sayings

I probably would never be caught wearing a baseball cap. Hats are difficult to me because they tend to be too big for my head. They don't fit right, and I feel ridiculous. — Ariel Pink

For me, self-gratification eventually took a backseat to trying to do something collaborative with other people, to trying to make something new. — Ariel Pink

I'd like to be seen as a normal, attractive person with good values. — Ariel Pink

Confidence was never in short supply in my case. If anything, I think I overshot the mark with confidence way too early in my career, and gradually, it's about just getting more humble and wanting to sit down more. — Ariel Pink

Oh, I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that. I was a little bit introspective, a little bit morbid. I was small for my age, so I was bullied and that kind of stuff. — Ariel Pink

We're all making castles in the sand, wonderful tapestries, an exquisite corpse. But is it meaningful? No. It's dogs barking. It doesn't mean anything beyond our yelping, at the pain of being alive. — Ariel Pink

I tried to just do things like make some money, be responsible, help out other artists who I see have had a similar path. — Ariel Pink

The music usually occurs to me as a complete sound, and then I have developed the skill of being able to translate that into a fully realized song. — Ariel Pink

I always thought, 'I could go the route of saying some controversial things and have it explode, just do it like that. But I don't do that.' But of course, it wasn't really up to me. — Ariel Pink

I never see songs as permanent. I'm always in a state of revising everything. — Ariel Pink

I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school, and every year, I participated in the talent shows and the school plays - all of 'em. — Ariel Pink

I was just very into things that were the opposite of what other people liked. I didn't want to listen to music that I could find at a friend's house. My identity was really forged around that, and you know, eventually that kind of identity gets dismantled and fed to the vultures. But I was somehow on my own mission. — Ariel Pink

I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things. — Ariel Pink

There's no relationship to the narrative anymore. People want their own interpretation of history. We're compartmentalizing, forgetting what came directly before, like it's not a big deal. That, to me, is a crime. — Ariel Pink

I really wanted to make the worst thing: the thing that even people who liked bad, terrible music wouldn't like - the stuff that people would ignore, always. Something really, really stupid. Something that is destined for failure. — Ariel Pink

I always want to be a member in the audience, and I want to hear it from their point of view and see it from their point of view so I can know if it's good. But that's just my issues, not a real problem. — Ariel Pink

I'm in love with Ariana Grande - she's got a very curious personality; I hear she loves Freddy Krueger, and I love Freddy Krueger, which makes me feel like we'd be perfect for each other. — Ariel Pink

My goal is to make something special and pure, and that keeps me going, keeps me busy on the path of sobriety. — Ariel Pink

The early pictures of me you see online, in just T-shirts and hoodies - I'm still that guy with the hoodie. But what you don't get to see in most of those pics is that I had these red clogs on that had, like, eyeballs on the ends of them that I drew on. That speaks a little bit more to what I was going after, stylistically. — Ariel Pink

I still have a very nonintellectual, nonjudgmental relationship with melody and the music as I hear it all in my head. — Ariel Pink

I want to stay in some era and remain there like a stupid idiot and see what happens when you try to pause time and not affect it. Not succeed. Not try to think ahead or think behind. — Ariel Pink

That's really what keeps me playing live - appreciation. And I guess I've made a lot of wiggle room for myself to try different things and discover what I'm doing, and the audience accepts it. — Ariel Pink

I definitely don't feel a sense of jealousy or competition, and that's a really good feeling. — Ariel Pink

That's my talent, I make people feel uneasy. — Ariel Pink

When a song blows your mind the first time you hear it, you don't know where it's going. It's blowing your mind as it's unfolding. Then there's that sensation that you're actually going to remember the song. — Ariel Pink

The media lies to us all the time, and we always believe the media. — Ariel Pink

My music has always been my solo project. — Ariel Pink

It's really the creature of my own making from top to bottom. I appreciate that. And the good fortune, the perseverance, having the stamina to stick around longer than everyone else even after people write you off - that's always been a good motivating force in my life. — Ariel Pink

I had a very active inner life as a kid. There's a good album or two worth of stuff that I can bring out on a rainy day if I have a loss for inspiration or whatever - even now. — Ariel Pink

Do you know I used to pride myself on the fact that I'd never booked a show in my life, but that I'd played so many because I'd been invited? — Ariel Pink

The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture. — Ariel Pink

I know when somebody's heard my music. I can hear it in their music. — Ariel Pink

I always wanted to get into rock music so I could cover up my real personality, change my voice, and create a false self to hide behind. — Ariel Pink

The first half of high school, I had a girlfriend, and then the second half I got to know these guys who would just get stoned and jam. I had struck the goth thing by then, but I still thought of myself as Ian Curtis or something. — Ariel Pink

I would die to record in space. That would be the coolest. If I got the option of, going into outer space and hanging out there for a day, and then coming back home and dying the next day, or just waiting around to see if there's any opportunity for the technology to develop so that I might experience outer space sometime in the future, I would probably take the ride today and die tomorrow. I'd be happy just hanging out between the moon and the Earth, getting a view. — Ariel Pink

It's just about pushing yourself to realms that are uncharted. I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing, I don't know if it's any good, I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line. Not just a creative fantasy world or something like that, but a mood too. — Ariel Pink

I'm not just going to go back to my bedroom, get a job and 'get real with myself' - come on. I'm already too old, and I'm lucky to have a job at all. — Ariel Pink

I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing; I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line. — Ariel Pink

I don't think I threw myself into music because I had the best intentions; it was because I was really angry. — Ariel Pink

I love it when other people can come up with ideas and tell me what to do. — Ariel Pink

Maybe by making people feel uncomfortable, I tap into that uncanny quality that is a part of the scariest, weirdest things that you remember happening to you when you were a kid. — Ariel Pink

I'm not dissatisfied, just not satisfied in an ultimate sense. — Ariel Pink

If somebody ever says something is a mature theme, it's bound to not be. I mean, you shouldn't fall for that. You can make it sound mature, but anything that's about being mature is pretty immature. — Ariel Pink

I think I've been lucky enough to have had an extended adolescence. I'm a lot like I was when I was 15. — Ariel Pink

My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me. — Ariel Pink

I'm so unmaterialistic in every way. If you saw my apartment, it would explain a lot, I think. It's not so much a mess, but it just needs to have some feng shui or a real 'Queer Eye' makeover or whatever. — Ariel Pink

I have a strong impulse to protect history and time and the lineage of events. — Ariel Pink

If I got the option of going into outer space and hanging out there for a day and then coming back home and dying the next day, or just waiting around to see if there's any opportunity for the technology to develop so that I might experience outer space sometime in the future, I would probably take the ride today and die tomorrow. — Ariel Pink

I don't work under the illusion that I'm the next whatever. Every time a record comes out, if it gets a good review, I'm like, "Well, one more year, guys. We bought ourselves another year." — Ariel Pink

That's one thing I don't think people consider nowadays. They want to believe in the importance of marriage, boil it down to just a signature on a legal document. But that's exactly what it is. If not, why not just get married without one? — Ariel Pink

I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that. — Ariel Pink

I remember being very psyched for our first tours, despite not knowing about the endless stream of situations and setbacks that we'd face. — Ariel Pink

I get to live down my reputation for being cantankerous if I slowly evolve towards being a really good live show. — Ariel Pink

I'm not interested in nostalgia; I'm interested in who I am. — Ariel Pink

The world is full of bands and bullshit, and if I'm doing a stupid art project like rock 'n' roll then I want to spare my audience as much as possible. — Ariel Pink

I do get credit for having a California sound to my music, but I don't think people really know what that means - they think the Beach Boys. I'm thinking more like Sunset Strip in the 1960s and stuff like that. — Ariel Pink

I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them. — Ariel Pink

If you don't appeal to kids, to the zeitgeist, you get thrown on the scrapheap. — Ariel Pink

The ideal is to live forever, right? Or to live right now and just be grateful that I feel good. I'm definitely grateful for every second that I'm alive. At this point in my life, I definitely take time out throughout the day to just stop and be like, "Everything is cool." It's as good as it's gonna be, because it only gets worse. — Ariel Pink

I've learned that I shouldn't shrink from success. Though honestly I thought they'd be knocking on my door years ago. — Ariel Pink

Talk about a struggling artist having to work against enormous odds ... But I love movies so much, so I'm going to do it. — Ariel Pink

I think about music in the way that I heard music as a kid - like, Oh my god, there's this weird rubbery ball of undulating things. — Ariel Pink

I've kind of gotten more timid. I used to be fearless - at a certain point I didn't care about what anybody thought. I had all the answers and I could have been as bad as I wanted to be. But nowadays I just want to be good and make people happy. — Ariel Pink

And we'll dazzle them all — Ariel Pink

The universe is expanding, and every second that you're alive, the universe is bigger than it was a second before. There's nothing in front of us, exactly, other than the future, and there's no space for the size, the density of the universe to go. Because it's expanding at every point simultaneously. — Ariel Pink

R Stevie Moore was obviously a huge influence and is still a very big influence in my life. — Ariel Pink

During those formative times, I really didn't know what was going on, and I was sort of torn in a thousand different directions with how I felt about what I was doing. — Ariel Pink

I sang "Patience" by Guns N' Roses for my sixth grade talent show and I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. It was all very, very theatrical. It was only later that I separated the two and thought of myself as quite the opposite of an actor. — Ariel Pink

I'm a product of my environment. — Ariel Pink

I was been raised to believe I was an artist. I believed what my parents said and fulfilled it, like a prophecy. — Ariel Pink

You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them. — Ariel Pink

In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me, and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out. — Ariel Pink

I'm in Hollywood - I have no business not being in the movie industry. — Ariel Pink

I do enjoy my solo time ... I want to stay home and do soundtracks and watch TV in my underwear with a keyboard on my lap and just be a couch potato. — Ariel Pink

My career is a burden, but I can't just fade out like a pathetic sore loser. More often than not, I'm just making a fool of myself for the hundredth time, and that wasn't part of the plan, initially. I'd be happier not having any kind of public presence whatsoever and just hiding behind the sleeves of the CD. — Ariel Pink

I'm always gonna be in opposition no matter what, but I can still cover my bases and do what I like. — Ariel Pink

As for performing live, I just never imagined how it would work out; for good reason, because it doesn't just work out - not the way you think it will. It's a chance that you take. — Ariel Pink

I don't want any injustice brought against the bullies. Bullies just don't know any better. Anyone who is crying about police brutality or victimization as an adult needs to stop it and realize the privileges we have in this country. — Ariel Pink

I knew what I wanted to do, which was to become a recording artist, so I definitely felt like I had a calling. The performing part was the part that I wasn't sure about. — Ariel Pink

I have a theory: I believe that with the advent of the United States and the lawful definition of marriage, it was defined as between one man and one woman. It was anti-polygamy, in effect saying no man can hoard his women. — Ariel Pink

I look suspicious if I dress in sort of benign clothes, going to the airport. — Ariel Pink

As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about. — Ariel Pink

I have lots of friends, but I'm probably a terrible friend to all of them, even my family. I wouldn't be surprised if I found myself with no friends later on in life. My friends become my enemies. — Ariel Pink

It's not illegal to be an asshole. It's not illegal to be racist, even. It's not illegal to do anything. — Ariel Pink

I never thought of myself as capable of stirring up - generating - the actual drumroll for a record, you know, all the press. — Ariel Pink

People should be more passive with what they consider trustworthy. — Ariel Pink

I was actually under a lot of heaviness when I was younger. I thought of myself as an old soul. I was very obsessed with death. Basically, I didn't really have a youth - I sublimated all that into my identity and my music. — Ariel Pink

At 35, I'm thinking, Oh, I don't have any of that initial inspiration that I had before, all that angst. I always thought I would burn out very quickly. — Ariel Pink

I love everybody. You have to embrace all facets of humanity; love and accept everyone as being part of yourself. — Ariel Pink

I couldn't imagine what it's like to be a journalist talking about music. You're left with empty descriptions; you probably have to make up a sort of weird cocktail of band influences and references to other music to get your point across. — Ariel Pink

It's not illegal to be an asshole. — Ariel Pink

You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out. — Ariel Pink

You have all these song titles and song time, and you put it in a certain order, and you slap a cover on it. That's a record. That's how I've seen all my records. — Ariel Pink

I feel like I'm neither a girl nor a boy. I don't feel like a man. — Ariel Pink

From day one, I was already famous in my own head. It didn't take anything to make me feel that way. I know I'm totally not famous. I mean, it just depends on your perspective. — Ariel Pink

Everything comes with hard work. You never get to stop working. I don't see myself ever getting comfortable enough to not have to worry about working. — Ariel Pink

If you spend the first 30 years of your life only trying to look good, you're not going to know yourself very well. If you got it, flaunt it. — Ariel Pink

Ariel Pink never really existed because he was always Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, but then people started doing interviews with Ariel Pink as if Ariel Pink existed. — Ariel Pink

It was not designed for me to be 35 and still doing the same thing. But in another sense, it's like I've had an extended adolescence. It helps that I look young, too. — Ariel Pink

When I get to do whatever I want, I'm perfectly happy. I've found that the best scenario is that I just do what I do, and if somebody wants to be part of it, they should work as a conduit for what vision I have. They should help me complete the universe. — Ariel Pink