I had these glorified ideas about San Francisco and its drug culture - I thought inspiration would just hit me and I would get these San Francisco drugs in my system and all of a sudden an amazing record would come out. But that's not really what happened at all.

Zachary Cole Smith

Categorized in : Ideas Inspiration San Francisco

I didn't want the lyrics to be about specific things in my life, I wanted them to be about generalised experiences I'd had. So when I'm writing about relationships or somebody leaving you or something, a lot of lyrics are partly about failed relationships I'd had, but they were also about my Dad, and being abandoned as a kid.

Zachary Cole Smith

dad writing kids

There are a million things out there every single day that trigger me - songs, smells, even the season that we're in, fall. Something about the air.

Zachary Cole Smith

air song fall

The idea is: You played to 100 people this week in Europe, and then next week you can play to 200. It's an investment in that territory. But it can lose money because it's very expensive to go to Europe. You can't really just say, like, "Oh, we're gonna take our van and drive to California tomorrow." It's more like, "Oh, we have to fly to London and rent three guitar amps, a bass amp, drums; buy all these flights for four people; hire a driver."

Zachary Cole Smith

california guitar ideas

It's so easy to hate something. It's harder to genuinely appreciate something.

Zachary Cole Smith

appreciate hate easy

I'm glad that, despite everything, I was able to get work done and finish something. I never finish anything. So just being able to finish record and to make music is a great gift.

Zachary Cole Smith

records able done

Nobody really wanted to do that one European tour. For one, it was budgeted to lose money. They would've made something, but I would've lost a lot of money.

Zachary Cole Smith

made wanted lost

To be told that you're the voice of your generation is such an incredible amount of pressure, and I haven't faced that. Maybe by the time our third record rolls around, I will. My goals are to be a band like that in five years. At the moment, though, I can't really relate in any sense to the scale that Kurt Cobain fame has reached.

Zachary Cole Smith

voice goal years

It's pretty easy to lose money on tour - most bands do on their first couple of tours. We're more established, but I think it was just poorly booked. It was a mess from the get-go.

Zachary Cole Smith

band couple thinking

It's totally true: Ariel, Christopher Owens, me, and Courtney Love, all in Saint Laurent ads, all with the same haircut.

Zachary Cole Smith

courtney ariel saint

[YSL creative director] Hedi [Slimane] is a music-obsessed guy. I might've originally met him through Sky.

Zachary Cole Smith

ysl creative sky

I grew up around fashion - my mom was an editor for Vogue. Compared to the music industry, though, I'd say [fashion] is a little bit more disorganized. But it's exciting for me because, when you're a performer, there is a fashion element.

Zachary Cole Smith

editors fashion mom

Music is much more of a multimedia sort of thing than I expected.

Zachary Cole Smith

multimedia music-is expected

I wouldn't say music is my passion, or my calling, or anything like that. I mean, I don't really believe in that kind of stuff. Life is a series of chance happenings, so I just fell into it.

Zachary Cole Smith

passion mean believe

Music is an opportunity to say every single thing that you want to say. People will pore over whatever you say and however you say it and, for me, it represents complete freedom of speech.

Zachary Cole Smith

freedom-of-speech opportunity people

You can't show somebody what it's like to experience loss, but you can soundtrack it and help them experience their own loss. I am so lucky to have this venue to be able to say and talk about all the stuff I've been through.

Zachary Cole Smith

able lucky loss

Generally, I think people are just going through the motions now. There's so much stuff that people are doing today that has already been done. I kind of like that new Savages record, but I don't know why they take themselves so seriously.

Zachary Cole Smith

savages people thinking

I don't know if there's anything that would surprise people, because I don't think that anybody knows anything about me at all. There's not much out there. I think I'm going to come out with a pretty dark and troubled record, and it might upset some people.

Zachary Cole Smith

dark people thinking

There's a lot of stuff that I've been through in my life in the past couple of months that I don't really want to share with people who are close to me, but I have no option if it's my art.

Zachary Cole Smith

couple past art

Obviously there's so much about me on the Internet that you can turn against me, and you can make me into any person you want.

Zachary Cole Smith

turns internet want

I've tried to be clear about who I am, and be as open as possible with the press, and speak extremely candidly and openly about stuff. I feel like in almost every instance, it's completely backfired, and I feel like people have all these kind of absurd ideas about the way I think about myself, and my own self-identity.

Zachary Cole Smith

who-i-am self thinking