Josh Dempsey

“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

“Andy Greenwald: It felt like a rubber band: How far could you stretch this music, which was predicated on a very intimate connection between performer and audience? Could you stretch it around the whole country? Could you stretch it around the whole world without something essential snapping? What happens when subculture goes mainstream?”
― Chris Payne, Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo’s Mainstream Explosion 1999-2008

“Maria Sherman: ...I also wonder if people who are loyalists to this music--ride or die Warped Tour every year--I imagine at a certain point they were sick of seeing bands they love blow up to an enormous size and no longer feel like their own. Not that you have to be younger to experience that but . . . there's such a feeling of ownership of this music that you connect to deeply. And after a while it's like, 'Okay, well it got too big. I'm out.”
― Chris Payne, Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo’s Mainstream Explosion 1999-2008

“Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. We get to choose.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being