Miami is just really fun whenever I go there. It’s like this post-apocalyptic Barbie world: everything is pink, and there’re palm trees everywhere. But then there are also all these people in crazy sunglasses, warehouses with sick parties where all the girls are covered in spikes and black leather. It’s a very weird place.
Grimes
I truly love ‘Gangnam Style.’ I guess it’s a meme. I feel like it’s one of the few times where the meme and the quality combines nicely.
Grimes
The most valuable live thing for me is when people look like they’re having a good time.
Grimes
I can’t censor myself; it’s really important for me to say how I feel.
Grimes
It’s obviously funny to be a meme, so I could be down with it in that regard, but it also belittles one’s art.
Grimes
If I’m a bad mood, I can’t go on stage and smile.
Grimes
If you focus too much on development of the visual angle, it could be a detriment to what you’re doing musically.
Grimes
When I first started out, I was making really slow, psychedelic ambient music because it was all I could do.
Grimes
I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They’re the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa.
Grimes
You don’t just have to be influenced by rock, or goth, anymore. It’s okay to say, ‘My influences are Tin Pan music from Bali and Rihanna.’ There are still so many combinations that haven’t been done yet.
Grimes
In America there’s lot of cool cities, but in Canada there’s, like, well, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax may be cool, but they’re so expensive. Montreal is the only city that’s affordable but also has buses and culture.
Grimes
I don’t think I know anyone who has a steady job in Montreal.
Grimes
Most of my music videos were made for under $200.
Grimes
I’m sad that it’s uncool or offensive to talk about environmental or human rights issues.
Grimes
You rarely find someone who sings really well and who produces really well; it’s a problem, and I just think it’s a missing link in the music scene.
Grimes
I don’t want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living.
Grimes
If you tell someone you’re doing something innovative, they’ll think you’re doing something innovative.
Grimes
I think I have serious latent Catholic guilt issues.
Grimes
I want to make an a cappella record to release for free.
Grimes
My image seems to be so infantilized, and I don’t really know why. It belittles the music.
Grimes
I believe the human mind is a very fallible thing, but it’s the only thing that I can really know, I guess.
Grimes
I went through my adolescence having this revelatory experience – I can have any music I want, and I can get it immediately. For me and for a lot of people I know, there’s this musical eclecticism that happened.
Grimes
I’m a super-introverted person.
Grimes
I don’t even wear shoes with heels because I hate making a noise when I walk and people looking at me.
Grimes
It’s kind of like I’m Phil Spector, and I’m forcing a young girl to make pop music and perform exhaustively. Except, instead of it being someone else, that girl is also me.
Grimes
I always wanted to be really experimental.
Grimes
As a producer, I’m trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality – not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.
Grimes
When I’m making a song that’s very Grimes, it just feels very insular and it feels weird to have someone else do something on it.
Grimes
The thing about music is it’s not an obscure pursuit, it’s a very natural thing for human beings to do. Once you put in the effort, the learning curve is very fast.
Grimes
I’m against spending money to record.
Grimes
I’m tired of being considered vapid for liking pop music or caring about fashion as if these things inherently lack substance or as if the things I enjoy somehow make me a lesser person.
Grimes
I’m tired of being congratulated for being thin because I can more easily fit into sample sizes from the runway.
Grimes
I’m just very obsessed with Japanese stuff in general.
Grimes
I have a lot of Japanese friends: I grew up in Vancouver, and there’s this huge Japanese population over there.
Grimes
It’s really hard to be on stage and packing your gear when people who just saw you play are in the room, because they all just want to talk to you.
Grimes
Usually I perform with dancers.
Grimes
I like going crazy. And not just for art – I like extremes in general.
Grimes
I’ve always been very intense about everything I do.
Grimes
I was incredibly unpopular in high school but also extremely notorious.
Grimes
I have an intense desire to constantly make music, and I don’t feel that way about anything else.
Grimes
My favorite music is never the music that anyone else likes, and other people’s favorite songs are always my least favorite.
Grimes
My dream job would be sitting in a room, cranking out hits for Rihanna.
Grimes
It’s interesting to be a front person who is controlling the majority of the sound.
Grimes
If I went on ‘American Idol,’ I would definitely be kicked out immediately.
Grimes
My set can get really screamo and aggressive, or it can be ambient and Enya-esque.
Grimes
I want to make Grimes a high-fashion sci-fi act.
Grimes
I don’t own anything designer.
Grimes
I’ve always been such a nerd.
Grimes
I listen to a lot of medieval music.
Grimes
I like creating beauty out of scary things.
Grimes
I think my sound is post-Internet.
Grimes
My manager lives on my block; four of the apartments in my apartment complex of seven are people I know. It’s a really close-knit community, and almost everyone on these few blocks are artists or graphic designers, because we live right on the cusp of a warehouse district.
Grimes