Grimes Quotes & Sayings

Removing all stimulation around you is a really positive thing in terms of stimulating your creativity. — Grimes

As a producer, I'm trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality - not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality. — Grimes

I think you can hear, when you listen to someone's music, whether or not they're enjoying making it - it's so great to hear music where you can tell the person making it was just having a blast. That's really important to me as far as my process goes. That's probably why my music ends up being so poppy! — Grimes

I cry really easily. If I see a butterfly, I'll practically burst into tears. So it's really hard for me to yell at people, because I'll feel so guilty about it. But if I don't, then they don't take me seriously and it's this endless cycle. — Grimes

I like performing, but I usually get really sick when I'm on tour, and it's just hard. — Grimes

I don't even wear shoes with heels because I hate making a noise when I walk and people looking at me. — Grimes

Usually I perform with dancers. — Grimes

I've seen Animal Collective live, and I suffered permanent hearing loss from that show! — Grimes

If you look at the way people behave at shows, icons are now musicians; they are the people that we worship. — Grimes

I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living. — Grimes

One thing with Montreal is it's so cold and everyone's so poor and beer's so cheap: if you go to a show you have to brave the weather to get there. So you show up and everyone's soaking wet - there's a sense of 'I trekked through three feet of snow to get here!' I think there's a kind of camaraderie that arises out of that, that's important to me as well. — Grimes

I want to make Grimes a high-fashion sci-fi act. — Grimes

I would never go to a studio. I need my space, you know what I mean? I need to be able to chain smoke and pace about, cry and like ... spit. Just make noise, make a huge mess. I also feel like if I was concerned for the cost of the studio - like, 'this is costing 40 dollars an hour' - I wouldn't be able to work. — Grimes

Most of my music videos were made for under $200. — Grimes

I'm a very unhealthy person, and Montreal is very cold, and I'm usually sick when I'm there. — Grimes

I'm not interested in making art unless I'm totally freaked out and worried people are going to hate it. — Grimes

Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be. — Grimes

There aren't many other labels who I can say are that successful, and can give me as much as 4AD gives me, and still have such a great roster. — Grimes

I prefer making videos to making music. — Grimes

I think the internet is kind of redefining what it is to be a teenager. Because there's a lot of media that's aimed at teenagers that other people are getting into. But, conversely, pornography or stuff that's intended for adults is completely readily available to anyone, like teenagers. — Grimes

I just watched another person I care deeply about basically turn into Gollum and my heart is broken. — Grimes

I think my sound is post-Internet. — Grimes

I don't know if I would ever have costume changes - usually I just end up taking off my shoes, I get so sweaty, and ... I just need to be comfortable. — Grimes

I listen to a lot of medieval music. — Grimes

I grew up going to punk shows, that kind of thing - I don't wanna make pop punk! - but I like the idea of people going totally crazy and it being really intimate, loud and super-aggressive, but combining that with pop music. — Grimes

The most valuable live thing for me is when people look like they're having a good time. — Grimes

Success, for me, is a song that can deliver shivers. — Grimes

I'm tired of being considered vapid for liking pop music or caring about fashion as if these things inherently lack substance or as if the things I enjoy somehow make me a lesser person. — Grimes

I like going crazy. And not just for art - I like extremes in general. — Grimes

The thing about music is it's not an obscure pursuit, it's a very natural thing for human beings to do. Once you put in the effort, the learning curve is very fast. — Grimes

I start a lot of songs and throw them out because the energy is not right. It's almost like the file becomes cursed. I have to delete it. — Grimes

There are a lot of musicians I've met on Twitter where it was like, 'Hey, I like your music' - and then I ended up meeting them and it turned into a friendship. — Grimes

I've never lived outside of Canada, so I've been really cold my entire life. Most of my memories are coloured by the fact that I was really cold, just ... all the time! — Grimes

I have an intense desire to constantly make music, and I don't feel that way about anything else. — Grimes

I'm so sick of my own music that I don't know if I can edit another video, which involves hundreds of hours of listening to your own song again and again and again. It becomes so grating after a while. — Grimes

Especially with music, people want confidence. — Grimes

I've always been such a nerd. — Grimes

Lets make it known that we don't want to give away our beautiful homeland to corporate interests. It is our right as Canadians to be part of these decisions. The only thing standing between this world and environmental catastrophe is us — Grimes

I just can't perform well unless I'm wearing jeans. — Grimes

Music is a religion to me and my friends. — Grimes

I'm a super-introverted person. — Grimes

I'm not, like, a natural performer. It's sort of a thing that I've had to learn to do. — Grimes

If I went on 'American Idol,' I would definitely be kicked out immediately. — Grimes

In America there's lot of cool cities, but in Canada there's, like, well, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax may be cool, but they're so expensive. Montreal is the only city that's affordable but also has buses and culture. — Grimes

I love a lot of very sentimental music, but I shouldn't necessarily be the person who makes it. — Grimes

I can tell really early on in a painting if I'm going to toss it or not. — Grimes

Mariah Carey is my favorite singer because her voice sounds utterly groundless. It's not even a human voice; it almost sounds mechanical. — Grimes

Fashion can be a really powerful tool, but it's also a place where you can be totally humiliated and have your power taken from you. — Grimes

When I'm making a song that's very Grimes, it just feels very insular and it feels weird to have someone else do something on it. — Grimes

My image seems to be so infantilized, and I don't really know why. It belittles the music. — Grimes

If you tell someone you're doing something innovative, they'll think you're doing something innovative. — Grimes

The groove can go for like three days - once I'm in it it will just keep going until I'm totally exhausted. But that's how I like to work, I like to be away from everyone and just get in the zone, and stay there for as long as I can keep it there. — Grimes

I went through my adolescence having this revelatory experience - I can have any music I want, and I can get it immediately. For me and for a lot of people I know, there's this musical eclecticism that happened. — Grimes

I think one of the reasons I'm successful as a musician is that the first like 30 shows I played, I played with no monitors standing in front of guitar amps in a shitty, smoky warehouse where people were screaming and wasted, knocking over my gear. So shows after that seem pretty easy! — Grimes

If you focus too much on development of the visual angle, it could be a detriment to what you're doing musically. — Grimes

The thing is, I really like working. If I sit around too much, I get really bad anxiety. — Grimes

When an artist, or whomever, moves from their scene to the bigger pond, it starts getting crazy, because all of a sudden people don't respect you, and you have to start being a lot more aggressive than you would normally be. — Grimes

I write music better in the winter, I prefer making music when it's dark. — Grimes

My favorite music is never the music that anyone else likes, and other people's favorite songs are always my least favorite. — Grimes

I think my music's kind of cold, but I don't know if it's related to the weather. It might be because it's always grey [in Montreal], it's very depressing. — Grimes

I only work at night, generally. Usually when I work [during the day] I'll black out the windows or something. — Grimes

I'm a very nervous, shy person. — Grimes

I'm tired of being congratulated for being thin because I can more easily fit into sample sizes from the runway. — Grimes

I don't own anything designer. — Grimes

I'm actually not a particularly negative person, but I feel like most things are better when they're not actualized. The motivation that comes from wanting something is so much more driving of people than actually getting it. — Grimes

I truly love 'Gangnam Style.' I guess it's a meme. I feel like it's one of the few times where the meme and the quality combines nicely. — Grimes

My great fear is that I'm the ultimate shallow person. I think about this kind of thing a lot, and about this phenomenon in our culture where people identify themselves with their interests. I've been trying not to think about it too much. It used to really upset me when people called me "witch house." — Grimes

The last thing I think about when I'm making music is its reception. — Grimes

Miami is just really fun whenever I go there. It's like this post-apocalyptic Barbie world: everything is pink, and there're palm trees everywhere. But then there are also all these people in crazy sunglasses, warehouses with sick parties where all the girls are covered in spikes and black leather. It's a very weird place. — Grimes

I like creating beauty out of scary things. — Grimes

There's definitely a solitary aspect to not having a band, and there are times when I wish that I did. — Grimes

I've always been very intense about everything I do. — Grimes

Lately I've been really into screaming a lot through delay [effects], having seven people on stage topless going crazy, stuff like that. Really in your face, but maybe more organic than choreographed dance moves. — Grimes

I have a lot of Japanese friends: I grew up in Vancouver, and there's this huge Japanese population over there. — Grimes

The way that you present yourself visually totally dictates your audience and everything that anyone thinks about you. — Grimes

I think Canadians make a lot of music because we're stuck inside all the time. — Grimes

I'm just very obsessed with Japanese stuff in general. — Grimes

I love humanity, I love the way people look — Grimes

It's obviously funny to be a meme, so I could be down with it in that regard, but it also belittles one's art. — Grimes

I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They're the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa. — Grimes

I think I have serious latent Catholic guilt issues. — Grimes

Just because something might not have a deep philosophical meaning doesn't mean it's not important or relevant. — Grimes

I know texture is really important, but I think texture and stuff precedes songwriting a lot of the time these days. — Grimes

If I'm a bad mood, I can't go on stage and smile. — Grimes

I'm not good at being, like, a sexy girl. — Grimes

I definitely see the voice as an instrument: It makes great drums, great synth pads, great everything. — Grimes

Even though I really admire what Beyonce does, and she's probably got one of the best live shows in the world - honestly! - that's so not my style. — Grimes

By the time I'm 50, there is probably going to be a nuclear holocaust. I should just enjoy myself. — Grimes

When I'm making something I need it to be catchy - I need it to hit the sweet spot. — Grimes

I like to aestheticize every possible thing that can be aestheticized. — Grimes

From an early age, I knew I would be unhappy if I wasn't doing something creative. — Grimes

I don't think I know anyone who has a steady job in Montreal. — Grimes

Usually when I make music, in my head I'm like 'this isn't Grimes, this is just some other project that you can release later, so there's no pressure and it doesn't matter and no-one's ever gonna hear it'. — Grimes

There used to be a lot of industry in Montreal, and now there's not, so it's really easy to get huge, empty spaces where you can practice and make music or make art for very, very cheap. — Grimes

I believe the human mind is a very fallible thing, but it's the only thing that I can really know, I guess. — Grimes

Basically, I'm really impressionable and have no sense of consistency in anything I do. — Grimes

I want to say my life inspires my lyrics, but I also try to abstract them as much as possible because I don't want to refer to my life explicitly. I'm definitely really embarrassed by my lyrics. — Grimes

I can't censor myself; it's really important for me to say how I feel. — Grimes

It's interesting to be a front person who is controlling the majority of the sound. — Grimes

It's really hard to be on stage and packing your gear when people who just saw you play are in the room, because they all just want to talk to you. — Grimes