James Vincent McMorrow Quotes

I don’t know if I’m attention deficit, but I certainly am easily distracted by other things.

Life is short. I’m here to make music, I’m not here to sit on a beach. That sounds really boring to me.

I moved to London with this really warped sense of expectation.

I remember always looking forward to listening to country music in the car with my mother, and it wasn’t even something I enjoyed in the sense of music, but just being around music itself was enough.

All the really good guitar players – Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or even Bert Jansch or John Martin – I love all those people. But I didn’t start out thinking that I would be a guitar player. In the beginning, I played the guitar so I could sing. I mainly concentrated on my voice.

I was never a ‘sit down with a notepad and write lyrics’ kind of person.

You get one chance to make an impression and coasting through is a disservice.

I never was the front man in any bands I played in when I was in college, and I always learned music by myself at home.

I heard of this Texas studio. The owner, Tony Rancich, wanted to fly us out for the day to see the studio. I booked it the next day. He’s that rare guy that is in it purely for the love of it.

I like working by myself.

I have some vivid memories of walking around as a child with a cassette tape.

I just essentially stayed at home for three years and just learned to play as many instruments as I could and listened to as many singers as I could. Like, when I got to about 19/20, I started listening to singers. I normally just listened to bands. Now I listen to a lot of old singers, not a lot of new stuff.

You just wake up and make music.

The idea of trying to predict what people will or won’t respond to is risky.

I didn’t really learn how to play guitar until I was in college.

Sometimes my hands they don’t feel like my own; I need someone to love, I need someone to hold.

I have no interest in making music that’s built for an antique shop.

The only thing that’s ever made sense to me has been sitting in the house by myself making music.

I grew up in a place called Malahide, which is by the water and is beautifully quiet, leafy, and part serene.

When I first saw Drake, I thought I was never going to like him based on the person that I saw on T.V. He’s just so full on, and he’s got the ladies’ man thing, which isn’t necessarily something that would resonate with me.

I like what I like, I don’t like what I don’t like, and I’m very bad at toning myself down.

My favorite records are not easy – they’re not records that reveal everything to you the first time out.

I’ve traveled quite a lot and become a coffee nut.

More often than not, changes had to be made in order for a song to make sense, and by the end of it, it would just be something different. Lyrically, I am usually fairly confused until something is finished, and then it makes perfect sense to me.

I don’t function well in certain aspects of society, and you can read into that what you will.

You can batter your guitar, and it won’t distort too much, which is important for me because I play with my hands a lot – I don’t really play with picks.

You get one chance to make an impression, and coasting through is a disservice.

I don’t know about folk music. I play guitar, so there’s a feeling I make folk music.

I have a vision for everything that I make, but… I’m not that considerate about what I do. I do whatever is in my head and how it ends up tends to be the thing that it’s supposed to be. It was never a premeditated decision.

You play a couple of shows, and these label guys come – and they leave halfway through a show. Then the phone calls just stop. And your heart is broken.

I’ve got an Avalon guitar – that’s the company that used to be Lowden. They come out of Ireland, and they’re like these folk kind of guitars. You can pick ’em, you can strum ’em – they’re quite good.

My love of R&B and hip-hop has influenced my life not even as a musician, but generally in terms of growing up and looking to America as an inspiration.

Food in Dublin has gotten immeasurably better than it was. When I was a kid, there weren’t a lot of options. Now you’re overwhelmed with options.

With music, it feels natural that, in my head, I can pull things apart and then put them back together very quickly.

I’m mostly a keep-to-myself kind of guy, but you slowly find yourself getting folded into the musical tapestry.