Eliot Sumner Quotes

On my fourth or fifth birthday, a guitar was given to me, and I made a new friend. A very loud friend.

With a band I feel stronger. It’s not just me and my weird thoughts.

I think I have a lot of energy, and most of it is quite aggressive energy. But in a positive way, I think. It’s like a positive aggression.

I wear a lot of black. Like my heart.

I was somewhat of a mute at school, so people were quite scared!

I like to move around. It suits me. I grew up in Wiltshire on a farm, and that’s the only place I call home.

Self-sufficiency is vitally important to my self-respect. I never wanted to rely on my parents in that way, because I knew that if I got used to it, I’d be reliant all my life.

I knew I wasn’t going to write a record as soon as I got signed, because I hadn’t had any life experiences. I was still at school, and I wasn’t going to write about that.

For me, Paul Simon has always been an incredible songwriter, as he writes very complicated songs that sound very simple, and he makes it look so easy when it’s not.

I think, forever, I was trying to figure out maybe… what I am. But I don’t think anyone should feel pressured to have any kind of label or tag on them. We should treat everybody the same… Me, I don’t like to be put down to a specific thing. We’re all human beings.

People always have to have a reference – I think I’ll always be in the shadow of my parents.

With social networks these days, everyone needs to know everything all the time. But the problem is, people are so used to short snippets of information that no one has any attention span anymore. I don’t, anyway.

I write most of my stuff when I’m on a train or a plane, any mode of transport. I like trains because you hear this motoric rhythm and the scenery is great. You go into your own little world. You don’t have to be anywhere else.

My French is terrible, and my Spanish is even worse. I find Spanish really difficult. They speak so quickly, whereas in German, it’s very clear what they’re saying. It’s easier to repeat.

As a kid, I loved to dress up as Ian Dury and run around hitting people with drumsticks. Members of my family, neighbours, friends, kids at school – no one was safe from my rhythm sticks.

I sometimes suffer from insomnia, and one of the first times it ever happened, I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do with myself,’ so I started writing a song, and by morning, it was finished. It was about how I couldn’t sleep… I was 14.

I make my songs slightly abstract so that people can interpret them their own way. I think that’s a lot more special, so you can hear a song and think, ‘I feel exactly that way,’ even if it wasn’t written for that feeling.

I try to read, but my attention span is so bad, and ever since Netflix was invented, that’s all I do in my spare time, which is really bad, but it’s like a chore to read for me.

It stresses me out writing songs,; I get really super nervous and speedy. I feel like I’m possessed.

I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to music. I like studio gear. I’m always looking it up on eBay and seeing what I can afford.

I think everyone’s got an obstacle in their career that they have to challenge. I think, in a way, that pushes you to prove who you are.

I would make documentaries if it was a worthy cause. I have a lot of respect for people who put themselves in harm’s way to make people see that something needs to be done.

It’s always best to challenge yourself and go to a place out of your comfort zone.

Being Sting’s daughter hasn’t kicked any doors open for me – he has had absolutely nothing to do with my career. It’s all been down to me so far, and that’s how I want to keep it.

Music is the only thing that I trust.

It’s difficult to explain exactly how I react to music, but if it makes me feel anything at all, then I’ll have some kind of emotional relationship to it. That’s what defines good music to me – if it makes me truly feel something.

I can only be myself, and if I have to suffer for that, that’s okay, because to pretend to be somebody else – I tried that, it’s terrible.

I’m very shy and awkward; I can’t have a normal conversation, and then people think I’m being a bit rude, but really I’m not.

I don’t look into myself too much. I don’t think I’m shy so much as a better listener than I am a speaker. I just really don’t wish for attention.

I’m an extremist. I don’t do things in halves. I don’t moderate anything. That can be with work or with good things as well. But often, I take it a bit too far.

I’m very much a creature of habit. I don’t like to try to new things.

I didn’t come out as gay; I came out as I don’t really believe in gender.

I don’t particularly like attention. I like to do things on my own. I like to dress myself. People always ask that at shoots: ‘Do you want any help?’ That’s the weirdest question.