The Believer - Interview with Will Sheff

I find the bookish and literate tag vaguely insulting to pop music. As if pop music is ennobled when it has some kind of literary aspirations. The Shangri-Las weren’t bookish, and they were brilliant. You know? I don’t want to be some fop pretending to be a half-baked poet. I think the difference for us is that it’s a sort of celebratory, Dionysian thing, as opposed to an Apollonian scene. I’m very happy that the New York Times wrote a big piece and called us “literary,” because it’s good to have somebody say something about you, but honestly I think it’s all bullshit. My favorite groups, whether it’s the Rolling Stones or Neil Young or the Shangri-Las, they don’t have anything “literary” about them.