By the time Sonic Youth formed in 1981, my musical tastes had left the Dead behind, but I was always very proud… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
I've always been an acoustic guitar player, and I've pretty much continued to play acoustic guitar throughout all of the Sonic Youth… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
I've been lucky enough to be in this amazing band, and to me, a band is really a collaborative unit, and that's… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Sonic Youth has always been the vehicle for my writing, you know, because it's a collective songwriting entity: we write our songs… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
When Sonic Youth wrote music, we would rehearse for months before anybody heard anything. — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
One of the key guitars in my career has been an early-Seventies Fender Telecaster Deluxe that I had before Sonic Youth started… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
I've been sort of writing sketches for songs on my own forever and putting them down on cassette tapes. Yet for years… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Obviously, Sonic Youth has been a huge part of my life for many, many years, and I love all those guys dearly. — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Sonic Youth was not a singer-songwriter band. It was an electric collective. And, whatever else people's perceptions of Sonic Youth were, it… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
When Sonic Youth writes music, we write everything in a very communal way. It doesn't matter who brought something in initially; it… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
As far as we're concerned, we're always Sonic Youth, and we're always making a Sonic Youth record. We just see it so… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
During the whole time in Sonic Youth, I was happy to put my energy into that. It would have been very difficult… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
In Sonic Youth, at the end of 'Expressway to Yr. Skull,' we'd tap on the backs of our guitars to get this… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
I think Thurston's and my weird tunings lent Sonic Youth a very different sound from the get-go. In the band's 30 years… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Sonic Youth has a very democratic process for the most part. It almost doesn't matter who brings in an initial idea; everything… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Sonic Youth was a collective. There's something fantastic about the idea of making music is a social activity. — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
'Europe '72' was a super influential record full of fantastic songs and amazing experimental musicianship. I always valued both of those aspects… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Sonic Youth played one show before we even had a drummer. It was just me, Kim, and Thurston. The lights slowly went… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Sonic Youth could never really get it together acoustically - quite frankly, it wasn't something we were really that interested in. — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
We've been around long enough that there have certainly been people at every stage of our career telling us about one or another record… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
I guess I see 'Goo' half as a really New York record because I think there are a lot of really particular New York… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
It's easier to write about a celebrity, a personality, than it is to dig in and write about the music. — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
I have nothing against change or evolution, and I'm not one of those people who wants the city to be what it was 40… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
'Daydream' brought us to the top of the heap of the indie-college market and recognition by all of our peers; 'Daydream' kind of capped… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Signing to a major label was an experiment for us. It was a challenge: working in a big studio with a producer was a… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
We'd been on Geffen for a long time, and I think we felt that we needed a change. I just don't think we felt… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
It's not like we set out to antagonize the audience in any way. We're just presenting our music; it's really much more innocent. — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
One of the things I loved - or I love still - about this Occupy movement is it's got a very gentle core. I… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
We got our first significant pieces of press in the 'New York Rocker' from early gigs at CBGB. — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
Being a guy who was a geek with tape machines in the early days and really interested in how records get made, I was… — Lee Ranaldo Copy Share Image
