Quotes By Alex Kapranos

Surely every band wants to be a pivotal point in history.

Arty. To me the word's got as much venom associated with it as 'wacky'.

If I was a fan of someone as a teenager, then it's OK for me to feel completely in awe when I meet them.

Maybe 'Can't Stop Feeling' and 'Turn It On' we'll just release as singles. It's a thing The Beatles used to do which I really loved, the idea of releasing something as a single completely on its own.

Ambition is sneered at by some bands. It seems like a pretty good thing to me.

Men behave very oddly in the company of attractive women.

A lot of food criticism has a similar flavor to it, and I'm probably going to write about it in a different way.

You really only understand whether a song's good or not when you properly play it out in public for the first time.

I think in the world of indie music there's this sort of false modesty.

Glasgow's not a media center. When you're there, when you're hanging about, you feel quite detached from musical movements or fashions or anything like that. You do feel quite alone, in a good way.

I think a lot of bands are creatively knackered when they come off tour.

You can only begin to be great when you embrace a sense of your own ridiculousness.

If success had come along when I was 17 it would either have killed me or sent me completely mad.

Traditionally, lots of vagrants and unemployable characters wind up working in kitchens.

I want to make music that will make the blood surge in your veins, music that will get people up and dance.

Boredom or being sick of what you've done before is a big part of being in a band.

Ideally, musicians belong outside the Establishment. When they cross that line, it's like something in them has died.

I'm not a food critic, and I'm not really an authority to write anything on food.

Just because you can leap off a drum kit doing a scissors kick while hitting a chord, people expect you to be an extrovert socially. But I'm not always comfortable with the idea of small talk at a party.

Boho to me is a first-year student who's just discovered the tie-dye shop.

I'd rather eat a cow-pat on a bun than a bloody McDonalds.

No matter what you do, if you're trying to create something new, your environment has a massive impact on you.

There's a difference between expectations and aspirations.

Cinema, which is influenced by every single part of life, is direct and reaches you immediately. And writing - the best writing is complex ideas communicated concisely. And music - if it's a good tune, make sure people can bloody hear it.

A lot of bands have the enthusiasm kicked out of them by playing really dreary pub venues that just churn bands through.

It's very rare that a song falls from your mind complete.

There's a character that I play onstage, and I can't let him loose in the supermarket when I'm buying my beans on toast.

There are loads of bands I'd love to produce.

It's easy to be lazy when there's food lying around backstage or there's a fast-food joint a couple blocks away. But if you walk a little further, ask around a bit, of course there are exciting things to discover.

Why play a chord when you can play one note?