Greg Saunier quotes:

Usually if someone starts making universal claims, I tune right on out.

Almost everything that gets called "universal truth" or "common sense" is actually cultural. And too easily twisted into justifications for all kinds of behavior.

I'm against American corporations buying politicians to remove limits to greed, capitalizing on other people's misery, actively creating misery on which to capitalize, "financializing" every moment of our enslaved lives. Then when China or somebody takes over, then it will be [them] doing those things that I'll be against.

My projects are just side effects of what I obsess over, what I chat about, what random things pop into my head, what I dream at night.

When I'm playing best, I'm just thinking about the music, just interacting with what my bandmates are playing.

I'm always looking to disprove what I think I know for sure. I call that learning.

I feel vulnerable when my ego is threatened - if I get jealous of another band's good time slot at a big festival, if I'm about to get clobbered in a political debate, if I'm trying to impress someone I have a crush on. It's the opposite of openness, letting go, allowing deep feelings to express themselves. For me, that comes from playing music and from kissing.

I guess a lot of bands play around until they come up with something they like.

I have music in my head; I can't help it. You can put a gun to my head and it's not going to go away. The privilege is that I'm not being prevented from following that.

I love love. Growing up, I always thought it was a state, and I'd wait for it to appear. Now I think it's an activity, a skill, something you strive to create. A constant conversation between emotion and imagination and flesh.

I play drums, and I'd recommend it to anyone, except maybe your neighbors. It's great exercise - physical, mental, emotional, and social. It takes deep concentration but also activates concentration. If you're doing it right, it's always just a little harder than what you can actually pull off.

I try not to think about the drums themselves. If I do, I'll end up hitting myself in the head with a drumstick, or sustaining some weird injury.

I'm a rock-and-roll drummer, so my job is to create chaos.

I'm not unswayed by the opinions of others. I actually really value that, the idea that you can feel things the way somebody else might feel them is a really big part of doing music for me.

It's a great privilege to be able to play that much. When you play a lot, you can be really detail-oriented.

It's weird to me to even say, "I wrote this song." I never feel like I wrote it; I feel like I heard it.

I've found that writing and playing music has so little to do with will, and so much to do with just finding what's there waiting for you.

I've learned it's a human responsibility to create fun, not just wait for it.

That's one of the things that always grabbed me about rock music: There's a song, and you know how it goes, and you can sort of predict it, but a lot is left up to chance and interaction.

The only way the band could make any money was by going on tour. But going on tour meant we had to get time off from our jobs, and we couldn't get enough time off to make enough money from touring to survive, so the only way to try was to quit our jobs. None of us had a job that was so wonderful that we were just dying to keep it.

There were no rules. There's no guide to follow. I would just trust my instincts for some unknown reason. Something inside me would say, "This guitar is not loud enough," and I wouldn't know why. You never know how to reach that point until you've reached it.

There's part of me that feels a privilege not to do music, but to do what everybody should be allowed to do, which is to do what you're driven to do.

What most people call "chaos" is actually incredibly predictable and maddeningly boring - greed, close-mindedness, warring over power.

What's great about going on tour is that it immediately unburdens me of those self-centered misconceptions. Because suddenly, with these songs you've been obsessed with for months, you're playing them for hundreds of people.

When we play, every day is different. All three of my bandmates surprise me all the time.

It's very heartening to see people who I used to do music with still doing it.

It's amazing to think that there must be this river of ideas constantly rushing inside of a person, and once you've somehow found a path into it, then it's just there, whether you will it to be or not.