25+ Will Sheff Quotes On Drugs, Dreamy And Lyrical

Will Sheff is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer from Austin, Texas. He is best known as the frontman and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Okkervil River. Sheff has also released solo music and collaborated with a variety of other artists, including The Decemberists, Bright Eyes, and Courtney Barnett. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Will Sheff on love, life, drugs.

Top 10 Will Sheff Quotes

1. In a lot of ways, the way you're making your bread and butter is off people who aren't necessarily who you're writing for.
2. When you're a songwriter, people wonder about your personal life and the meanings behind the songs, and that can feel pretty invasive, so you become protective about your inner world.
3. I was always one of these people who is irrationally moved by stupid pop songs.
4. I wanted to be a filmmaker, actually, when I was in high school and college. But I just decided it would be more expensive to do, so I sort of decided music would be more fun.
5. People think that because they've seen your name in print, you're rich. I assume that. But all it means is that there was some intrepid interviewer who bothered to give you a call.
6. I always think it's far more admirable to confuse people than it is to reassure them.
7. Songwriting is an emotional medium, and rock and roll is an emotional medium.
8. I'm not pro-life. I'm very emphatically pro-choice.

Will Sheff Famous Quotes And Sayings

If you were a performer that only had an acoustic instrument, back in the day you couldn't hide behind your guitar pedals or the production or the vibe. There was performance and then there was the song, and that was all that you had. — Will Sheff

When your head is smashing into the concrete you don't have question about whether it's a real sensation. And ultimately, that's what's going to unmake us all - smashing up against the physical reality of death and decay, and being unmade. — Will Sheff

What's funny about my voice is, no matter what I sing, I sound like I'm really sad. I don't even mean to do it, it's just something my voice has. I think that's one of the reasons why Okkervil has been dubbed as really mopey - I have this tone to my voice that sounds like that. — Will Sheff

Collaboration is such a thrill when you're working with someone you really respect. When it's just one person working alone you get a singular view of their world, and that can be great, too. But when you have different people working together with different aesthetics, different techniques, and different mediums, you get something bigger than both of them. — Will Sheff

This is going to sound really corny, but it's the way I feel: Musicians have been around for a really long time. It's a really, really old job. When you look at the way that a small band toured back in the '50s, it's similar to the way that a small band tours now. It's been this long tradition, and when you meet somebody who has been doing this for a really long time, you have to have tremendous respect for them. — Will Sheff

When people downloading records for free you start to think, "Is it worth spending all this money to make a record sound good, especially if it's going to end up as an mp3?" But I can't drive myself too crazy thinking about that. On one level, being involved in art is all a quixotic thing to begin with. — Will Sheff

If you're going for things that are really terrible ideas you have to really have all your faculties about you to get away with them without being crucified. The best rock music gets away with something, somehow, that it shouldn't be allowed to get away with. — Will Sheff

You have to pretend that you're not bothered by your record leaked early. So that's the tack that I'm taking. It's like if you're working in a store and people come and openly shoplift from you, and you're not allowed to say anything about it. Instead, you're supposed to smile and go, "Hope you enjoy that!" I'm not going to complain about it, I don't get to make the rules. It's just really funny how that works. — Will Sheff

I was never a kid who dreamt of being a performer. I started singing the songs because nobody knew who I was or cared at all. If I wasn't going to sing them, nobody was going to sing them, so I had to step in and fill that role myself. — Will Sheff

If I'm working on a set of songs, and thinking about putting them together in a collection, I start to think about what they have in common. Either on purpose or without meaning to, I shape them all in the same kind of way, because I'd rather the album feel like a galaxy of things that all have to do with each other. I do that with sonic elements, too - it's a matter of each record having its own specific identity. — Will Sheff

I think that anything is a form of folk music. That's just me being glib, but the thing I like the best about humans, and there are not many other things besides this, is that humans make culture. If you're an artist, a big part of folk is noticing what other people are doing and incorporating it and changing it - the way that songs warp and change over time. — Will Sheff

There's something really special about childhood. When you're a kid, you're at your most creative, and you're very plugged into your imagination and emotions. But when you get older, you're encouraged to dance around your feelings and disengage, and I think it's crucial to fight that. — Will Sheff

There is a definite difference between live shows and the recordings. The recordings are for all time, hopefully, so you do want to bring across layers of subtlety. But the live show is this primal experience that everybody's having at the same time, that the recording can at best try to imitate or duplicate. — Will Sheff

I always just wanted to have the wherewithal to make another record. I never really dreamt of fortune or fame, because it seemed so unlikely. I'm much more interested in people's perceptions of me than what my life is really like. It appears that some people think it's all cocaine and caviar for Okkervil River. And it's not. I'm making a little bit more than I was making at the video store right now. — Will Sheff

Culture dictated from above is the enemy of folk music. Whether it's stuffy classical music or pre-engineered pop where somebody's paid tons of money to make sure that everyone hears this song a certain number of times a day - that feels like the opposite of folk music. — Will Sheff

Everybody has had the experience of something they love - whether it's a pop song or a painting or a movie - feeling so perfect to them that it's almost like it came from another planet. It has nothing to do with ordinary life, which is very plain. And there's something depressing about that in a way, because you feel like you're this small little human, and you feel like it has nothing to do with you. — Will Sheff

I have complicated feelings about nostalgia. I think that sometimes it can be dangerous. It can airbrush the truth, or fictionalize the truth, which leads to the worst kind of sentimentality. But I'm also a sentimental person who feels quite a bit of nostalgia. — Will Sheff

Life Lessons by Will Sheff

1. Will Sheff's work teaches us to embrace our individual creativity and express our unique perspectives through our art.
2. We can learn to be open to collaboration and be inspired by the work of others.
3. We can also take away the importance of connecting with our audience and creating meaningful music that resonates with them.