American musician (1966–1997)
Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.
That’s what I wanted to do. You know, 2 hours. It’s like long-distance running or playing in a football game when you totally run out of steam and the moves you make after you run out of steam, because you’re totally unselfconscious, you’re not even thinking about the mechanics anymore. The moves you make then are incredible.
Why do they always show up there bleeding and dying on the cross? We don't remember lying there with a bullet hole in his head. I'm against the arbitrary organization of '' as a concept. We should all experience it all individually and purely. I don't agree with the separation of God and the body, I don't believe that we aren't a part of 'it', I don't agree that it's a man. In most religions there's no place for women. There aren't any women in the and I need that. I love women, I came from a woman.
and and , all dark, all romantic. When I say "romantic," I mean a sensibility that sees everything, and has to express everything, and still doesn't know what the fuck it is, it hurts that bad. It just madly tries to speak whatever it feels, and that can mean vast things. That sort of mentality can turn a sun-kissed orange into a flaming meteorite, and make it sound like that in a song.
AV: You grew up in , what was that like?
JB: From womb to tomb, it's thug country. I'm amazed that I had any friends at all. People grow up repressed from the spirit, day by day by day. Cable TV, it's fucked. It's misogyny, it's birth, death, work, it's misery, it's power. It's fuckin' hicks. And that's what I grew up with. I was rootless trailer trash. Now I prefer the to any place on the planet. I can be who I am here. I couldn't do it anyplace I lived as a child. I never fit in , even though my roots are there.
Everything I ever projected to be, it was—even the stinky, ratty, vomity part of it. Everybody has to do the subway. Everybody has to smell the same smells. And people get mad all the time. When people don’t like something, like ‘Get out of my way you blah, blah, blah.’ But [in L.A.] it’s like, ‘How ya doing? Let’s do lunch! I love you!’
RR: Whenever I've seen you play here in New York at or Fez, people sit there mesmerized.
JB: People weren't into it at first. I had to fight to be heard. Then I had to stop fighting. Whole months would go by where people would just be talking. I even got a headache from a performance one time.
RR: What changed?
JB: I learned how to use everything in the room as the music. A tune has to resonate with whatever is happening around it. So if people are talking, I let them talk. That just means they're part of the music. I even had to learn the noise the dishwasher makes at this little cafe; I had to play in B-flat, or it wouldn't sound right.
RR: I want to talk about another Michael. I read a review that compared your recent EP, , with Michael Bolton's new record.
JB: Oh, my God! Oh, shit, that's really disgusting!
RR: It gets worse. They said he has succeeded in taking from the tradition of African American soul and blues singers in a way that you have miserably failed.
JB: Really? But the thing is, I'm not taking from that tradition. I don't want to be black. Michael Bolton desperately wants to be black, black, black. He also sucks.
YCDW: What are some of your favorite black and white movies?
JB: Lets see, , , films, American Milan, and —which I absolutely adore.
YCDW: What kind of music are you listening to now when you get a chance?
JB: Well, today I did 's 'Live In Paris' and then I did '' by the . It really depends on what I have with me. I carry with me. Anything with soul for the moment to it. We stopped at a truck stop and got Truck Stop Comedy and 's 'Unleashed in the East.' YCDW: Do you have any favorite perfumes or scents?
JB: I like essential oils a lot. Tunisian and are my current favorites.