Jack Garratt Quotes

I studied at university for a term and a day, and then I dropped out.

I watch cartoons a lot. I’m a big ‘Rick and Morty’ and ‘South Park’ fan.

I like making sounds and putting it together, I’m not just a singer or a producer.

I’ve been naturally quick at learning things, and I learn by doing things, so if I sit beside someone who is actively doing something, I look at how they do it and absorb the way in which they do something and find my own comfortable way of reimagining that, or using certain techniques in my own way.

I was put through piano lessons when I was a kid. I say ‘put through’ because it was fun and I loved it, and it’s been beneficial now, but it was difficult because, although I can read music, I much prefer just playing and improvising and at least finding my own way to play an instrument.

The only intention I’ve ever had creatively, as a musician, is to be as different from myself as possible.

When I perform live, I’m doing a lot, but I kind of black out. I don’t think about it too much.

Festivals are the best because you can’t control anything, and for a control freak like me, that’s a wonderful experience.

I’m just here to do the best that I can do with the music that I make, and I’m not making it for any other reason than I feel like I have to. These ideas have to be created because they’re in me, and if I leave them in my head, I’ll go crazy.

I don’t want to write the song that I wrote yesterday, and I don’t want to write the song I’m going to write tomorrow; I only write the music I’m writing now.

The thing that was most constant when I was growing up was just complete support and adoration from my parents.

I’ve always found myself to be most free and creatively open when I’m on my own.

Tech gives people more opportunities to be themselves in front of other people. Sometimes that’s great; sometimes it’s bad.

I spent my entire childhood going ‘look at me, look at me, look at me,’ before realising I needed someone to look at me for more than just what I was showing off for.

Performing outside is always kind of strange. Usually, you can’t hear something, whether it’s your voice or instrument, but it’s a fun challenge.

My mum would play Stevie Wonder around the house, and I remember just loving the songs and feeling so blown away by how much was going on.

There’s a stigma attached to ‘pop music,’ like it’s a taboo word. It used to make my skin crawl when people said it, and I’d say, ‘I’m not a pop star! I want to be a respected musician!’ But I think people have changed the way they think about it.

I just hope people enjoy ‘Phase’ as much as I’ve enjoyed making it. I hope it’s a good reaction.

The music in my family has always been there; it’s been quite an obvious trait that seems to have trickled down the bloodline.

My grandfather was a church organist and would sing in choirs and was a musical genius to a certain extent.

Who am I to sit here and say I’m going to change the face of music?

I would go to school and try to talk to my mates about music and playing instruments and stuff, and they would turn around and go, ‘What’re you talking about? Shut up.’ And I realised that I was the weird one.

I believe that musical instruments are created because they are supposed to be played. There’s not an instrument that’s been designed to not be playable – it kind of defeats the point.

If you can fool every single member of the audience into thinking you’re confident and you deserve to be there, everyone will jump on your side.

I find it hard to not like music if it has passion behind it and good integrity. Only if it’s made for the wrong reasons and shows a lack of respect for its audience will I find something to dislike.

I get inspired by the sounds that evoke an emotion from me. That’s what I am drawn to; that’s what turns me on.

I’m fascinated by film scores, especially film scores for children’s movies because they have to be able to entertain an audience that isn’t interested in music yet.

Lyrics are really, really hard, I think, or at least they’re really hard for me. Some people can channel lyrics faster. I find them very hard to find, so because of it, they take me a long time, and I really think about them.

My mission is to just keep creating music. If it helps people in some way, then I’m doing the right thing.

I remember listening to ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’ as a kid. Stevie Wonder has an ability to manipulate pop into something globally obtainable. Anyone can listen and enjoy it because there’s something for everyone. That woke me up to the possibilities of pop music.

It’s difficult sometimes to go and see a show and enjoy it and not go and see a show and critique it.

I didn’t do myself any favours. I would be resentful of my own ideas even before I’d said them out loud. But music was always the most consistent and peaceful thing for me. So I taught myself to be my harshest critic rather than just a mean voice in the back of my head.

I remember, from aged six to nine, I was loud and abrasive and loved making noise and loved playing instruments and doing all those things. When I was about ten, I realised I could get attention by doing that, so when I was eleven, I started writing songs.

I wanted to create a body of work that I was proud of. It’s come from honesty and integrity, without forcing anything from myself, the ideas had to come instinctively and organically. Whether that translates to people in that way, it’s kind of out of my hands now.

The best music is the music which brings out something of you that you didn’t know was there before, or you did know was there but had avoided.

I genre-hop quite a lot. I love manipulating genre and deconstructing it and making it irrelevant. Genreless music is great because it means you get to write in any genre that you like.

I find it really difficult to turn my head off. I find it difficult to zone out.

Ever since I was a little kid, my ears and my hands would talk to each other very well, so I could pick up instruments quite easily.

I grew up with parents who really encouraged me to listen to as much music as I could.

The ‘Remnants’ EP was the first time I got to really explore myself as a producer, and I got the insane idea of doing it on my own in my future career.

People don’t want to hear the same song 12 times in a row on an album.

I find myself working ten steps ahead of where I actually am on my laptop or keyboard, but I know what the ten steps are. I just haven’t got to them yet.

All I do is hope that someone feels something from listening to my music.

When I was a kid and writing more acoustic songs, I was doing it more for the attention than for the love of the music. I knew I needed to change something because I wasn’t having fun and wasn’t liking the songs I was writing.

I will have a playlist ready that I’ll play out to the audience before I walk on stage, and I’ll listen to that same playlist in the room, so by the time I walk on stage, I’m in the same frame of mind the audience is.

I wish I was a prolific writing wondrous boy genius – I wish I was Stevie Wonder – but I wasn’t. I was me. I wrote terrible songs about girls I was head-over-heels about. As soon as a pretty girl looks at me, that’s it – I’m in love, and I should probably write a song about it!

Genre hopping is something I intend to do, and I intend to do it forever and ever because I think genres are boring.

I wanted to be a teacher because that is all I knew. It was a great course on primary school education, in which I could specialise in music, but I ended up dropping out after I was honest with myself about what I really wanted to do with my life.

I hope that I am, in a way, helping and touching other people with my music, and being a musician and having this as a job gives me a sense of purpose beyond my own selfish needs.

When I was younger and played acoustic guitar music, I got a lot of Sheeran comparisons, along with guys like Paolo Nutini and James Morrison.