John Cale
"The viola is the saddest of all instruments, and no matter how fast you play you can't get away from the melancholy."

John Cale

Fear Is A Man's Best Friend (Est. 1999) is the ultimate unofficial John Cale website
Fear Is A Man's Best Friend - John Cale

John Cale - Quotes

John Cale at Olympic Studios in London in 2006 - photo: Richard Ecclestone

On recording

"Cataloging everything you've done - I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in different ways of expressing myself. If I'm lucky, it will work."

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"I like finding new styles of expression, whether it's with lyrics or music. I like the new combinations. I'm proving it to myself. That has to be the first consideration, because if I can't prove it to myself I can't hope to prove it to anybody else. That's the rubric generally. If I'm interested in what I'm doing than I think other people will be interested in it."

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"I always end up with a very different product from what I originally intended. It's always during the course of the production that something happens - it seems that I've convinced myself it's not real unless the tapes are running."

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"I'm content with making records, but I don't want to be doing the same thing all the time."

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"In the studio you have pretty much carte blanche with whatever you're doing. You can turn natural instruments into electronic instruments."

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"I'm still looking for something. I'm getting closer, I think, but if someone moves the goalposts before the next album, I may have to follow them!"

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"You can easily end up just being a techno guy if you're not careful. You have got to have some humanity in there."

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"Phil Spector had a good idea. He took rhythm and blues and gave it a Wagnerian background. I like breaking things down into the lowest dominator and seeing how much tension can be created between the indivual parts, in order to creat a loud noise."

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"Sometimes I wish I wrote more songs, I don't write anywhere outside the studio. That's where it always gets done – going blindly into something. To me that's always been important. To go blindly into it."

» Fresh Cale

Paris 1919 Order the remastered and expanded Paris 1919 album (2LP, CD) via Domino Records
The Academy in Peril Order the remastered and expanded The Academy in Peril album (LP, CD) via Domino Records
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