Zachary Cole Smith Quotes

Music is much more of a multimedia sort of thing than I expected.

There are a million things out there every single day that trigger me - songs, smells, even the season that we're in, fall. Something about the air.

A record is worth 10,000 live shows.

I am super-interested in fashion. I love being a person whose clothes get discussed. That makes it more interesting for me.

I'm glad that, despite everything, I was able to get work done and finish something. I never finish anything. So just being able to finish record and to make music is a great gift.

All I'm trying to do is make music that people like and that makes people happy.

There are just some things that you can't deny.

It's so easy to hate something. It's harder to genuinely appreciate something.

I'm like part of the Kurt Cobain school of writing lyrics, which is the syntax of the words is more important than... is where it all comes from.

If I play Coachella, it's sponsored by a company - that's corporate, too. But we're playing it because we're getting paid and we want to be a part of the festival.

It's totally true: Ariel, Christopher Owens, me, and Courtney Love, all in Saint Laurent ads, all with the same haircut.

One of the 12 steps is to admit that you're powerless, but I think that's bullshit. I think it's important to empower yourself by facing the stuff that triggers you.

I don't think fear necessarily is a core human emotion, but I do think fear of death is something that is at the core of every person's existence.

I spent my life working before I started band. I worked construction, landscaping. I worked in kitchens, cleaned dishes. I worked demolition.

For me, it's always been important to have the live band be one thing, and the recorded band be kind of another thing.

Drugs are fine for you alone at home, but when it comes to being a family, which a band is, it just messes everything up.

We were a commodity used by corporations to make their brand look fashionable, but then they used us to keep kids out of venues.

I think that when people download the record they're kind of missing out on part of the experience, because it's really meant to be an immersive experience.

The touring band is DIIV, and the songs are always written with them in mind. But the new record is going to be more "me."

Nobody really wanted to do that one European tour. For one, it was budgeted to lose money. They would've made something, but I would've lost a lot of money.

I had to have the record literally taken away from me. I am such a perfectionist.

Recovery culture teaches you that you have to repent. I don't think that's necessary.

I guess I do feel the need to repent. I do feel like I owe the world a great album. I don't know why I feel that way. I just do.

When I read about myself and how writers have focused on negative stuff, it hurts my feelings.

Music journalists are some of the lazy, most uninspired, dull people I've ever met...

The music starts as being way separate from the lyrics, and I write - I have notebooks that I fill with drawings and just words, and stuff that I've written.

I went with Beach Fossils and we played 40 shows because we wanted people to see us.

There's positive attention and there's negative attention - negative attention is easy, positive attention requires actual hard work.

There's a lot of stuff that I've been through in my life in the past couple of months that I don't really want to share with people who are close to me, but I have no option if it's my art.

I feel like every great record is like a world in itself.

[YSL creative director] Hedi [Slimane] is a music-obsessed guy. I might've originally met him through Sky.

My mom worked at [American] Vogue before I was born. She has always been fashion-minded. I grew up with original Yves Saint Laurent sketches on the wall in our house. A lot of that rubbed off on me.

People are going to be way more patient listening to what I have to say now. I don't have five seconds to get their attention, I have five minutes. That's a huge window.

I wouldn't say music is my passion, or my calling, or anything like that. I mean, I don't really believe in that kind of stuff. Life is a series of chance happenings, so I just fell into it.

I wanted to show a different side of ourselves. I wanted to see in what ways I could explore something new. I felt like working on a double record would give people a lot to have.

Three years between records is longer than average. Double albums are much more of a statement. I really wanted to put myself out there as much as I possibly could.

Music is an opportunity to say every single thing that you want to say. People will pore over whatever you say and however you say it and, for me, it represents complete freedom of speech.

What I wanted was just to make music, and so, originally I just wanted to hide behind the album cover of the last record, and I wanted it to be almost anonymous.

It's pretty easy to lose money on tour - most bands do on their first couple of tours. We're more established, but I think it was just poorly booked. It was a mess from the get-go.

Obviously there's so much about me on the Internet that you can turn against me, and you can make me into any person you want.