'Whiplash' was always the song I hated the most because it's a song designed to screw with drummers. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
As a drummer, you're always fighting for a level that you never quite attain. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
At the upper echelon of musicians in general, I guess performers in general, you have to have this kind of live-or-die, cutthroat… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
It's a weird thing where, especially in jazz, you have to totally mention cutting sessions and people one-upping each other and people… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
I was in this public high school in Princeton, and it had this topnotch jazz program - if you were a musician… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
What I love about jazz is that it's full of legends, full of myths. It's an oral history because it started in… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
I wanted to look at the mentality that can breed that sort of intensity, that kind of cutthroat, pressure-cooker feeling, especially a… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
People like Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, you look at them playing music, and it's just like looking at a heavy metal… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
There were so many specific things from high school jazz band that I remembered: the conductor searching out people who were out… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
There are a few musicians that I know who seem on the outside like very asocial or somewhat unemotional people, people who… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
One interesting thing about jazz, or art in general, but jazz especially is such an individual art form in the sense that… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it's all about improvisation,… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
I would break a lot of cymbals. You whack the cymbals hard enough, and they will crack in half. Drums are not… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
My motivation for being a good drummer was born out of fear, which, in a way, seems so antithetical to what art should be. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
It's interesting when you wind up distilling all your ambitions and your goals and dreams into one single person. It's giving that person a… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
In a weird way, I'm always going to ground myself. I'm an insecure kind of pessimist, but I'm always kind of waiting for the… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
Real practice means working on stuff you're not good at. Real practice is about butting your head against the wall repeatedly until you get… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
It's a little difficult when something goes from being an utter obsession - a thing where your skill defines you as a person -… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
It was only through getting interested in more out-there and avant-garde forms that the musical suddenly seemed like such a wonderful genre to me. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
If you're an artist, you want to draw from real life; you want to draw from experiences, emotion, and it's something that a lot… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
I was interested in music and making movies about musicians, but my own experiences, and doing what it felt like for me to be… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
There are a lot of musicians in my life. But movies came first for me. That was my original passion. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
By the end of high school, I had this fork-in-the-road moment where part of me considered going to vocational music school to really pursue… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
At the upper echelon of musicians in general, I guess performers in general, you have to have this kind of live-or-die, cutthroat mentality. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
If you want to make a movie, there may be many forces trying to pull you down, but really, a lot of it is… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
I would break a lot of cymbals. You whack the cymbals hard enough, and they will crack in half. Drums are not actually as… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share
