James Murphy

You can buy $20,000 speakers, but put them in a room that's not right, and it sounds terrible. If you buy $20 speakers and put them in a room that's tuned right, it'll sound great.

After being in a 'professional rock ensemble,' there's a great joy in making music with friends, without any release plan.

Making people dance has another function that has nothing to do with art, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. It's like food - if you're not eating it, you're doing something wrong. If they're not dancing, something is wrong.

I had friends who were jocks or whatever... Then, around 12 or 13, kids get cliquish and cruel, and that disgusted me. It seemed a reprehensible use of one's arbitrary social status. So I got really aggressive about it and became more of a weird kid.

I was always just blown away by David Bowie and how mannered the guy was willing to be. It was so far from what I imagined someone with my confidence to be capable of.

Subway Symphony is a little idea I had to change the sound of the subway turnstiles into different pieces of music, depending on what station you're entering.

I'm an underdog by nature, and I like to be fighting. I don't make music for myself. I make music to fight.

Making 'Sound of Silver' was very emotional at times, where I just hated making that record.

I actually want to write a treatise in defence of pretension. I think the word 'pretension' has become like the word 'ironic' - just this catch-all term to distance people from interesting experiences and cultural engagement and possible embarrassment.

I write songs all the time. Sometimes they're just weird songs I sing while changing a baby, or songs about annoying things that I sing to myself, or to friends while sitting at a bar, or about Christmas or New York.

My gut instincts are strong, but they're not always accessible to me, which is why I like DJing, because you don't have time, and you have to go on instinct.

Songs can click together really quickly, and other times, they're really laborious and heavy-lifting.