On Wednesday, Memphis punk rocker Jay Lindsey (better known as Jay Reatard) was found dead in his home. Lindsey had been performing and recording music since the age of fifteen. He released most of his music—an amazingly prolific collection of dozens of albums and maybe hundreds of singles—on the most obscure of indie labels, and even ran his own small label, Shattered Records.

Lindsey was probably best known for his first solo album, Blood Visions, and for his intense stage personality. But ultimately, the 29-year-old’s defining characteristic as an artist was his relentless creative energy. Beginning with the day he quit school at fifteen, he seemed to never stop writing, recording, releasing new music, and performing. And not surprisingly, all this intensity was backed by a fierce and developed philosophy on the creative process.

In memory of his unrelenting vision and too-short career, here are just a few of the greatest quotes about making music, from the one and only Jay Reatard:

On Songwriting

“You could either say that somebody has a window of time where they have the opportunity to do what they do creatively, and do it well, or some people think you have a certain amount of songs before you dry up or whatever. I tend to think it’s an amount of time, so I’m racing against time constantly.”

– Waiting for Something – A Short Documentary About Jay Reatard

“Every day that we’re not on tour I write. If we go home for two weeks, I’ll try to write 14 songs. I’ll throw away most of them. I like the process of vomiting out a bunch of nonsense and then going through it and figuring out what’s keep-able. Sometimes out of 14 songs there will be enough parts to put them together and make four or five songs that are good.”

– Turn It Down

“I make it up on the spot, improvise lyrics, usually start with a drum beat, come up with a chord progression and then start layering melodies and pulling ones out that don’t work. I end up with what I end up with. It’s kind of like a Polaroid of your music. It’s right then and there and I think that’s how it should be.”

– MTV

“The name itself [of the album Watch Me Fall] implies a pretty heavy dose of self deprecation. I’m basically just trying to say, “Hey, check it out world. I’ve put all these warts on my face and now you have to look at them.” That’s all it is. Just put it all out there. I think if people celebrated what is wrong with them more, they’d be more interesting people. Most of the time, what’s wrong with you is more interesting that what’s right. What’s right with you is fucking boring.”

– The Village Voice

“I’d be lying if I said I actually knew what every song I had written was about. Sometimes it’s just whatever comes out. It’s a stream of consciousness most of the time. I’m far from a poet, I never really dug Bob Dylan so I don’t approach writing lyrics from that style. Sometimes it’s as simple, in pop music, as finding something that rhymes.”

– The Coast

On Touring

“Touring is what really separates the people who really want to do this, from the people who just kind of casually do it for something fun to do. It’s not a hobby, going on tour, it’s not a vacation, it’s not time to get away from your wife, time to leave your job for a week and be a rockstar. It has to be a total lifestyle, because you’re sacrificing a lot of things, man, and a lot of times you ask yourself, “For what? For who?”

– Waiting for Something Documentary – A Short Documentary About Jay Reatard

On Recording

“I’m doing it at my house, like I always have. It’s simply for convenience’s sake. If I have a song idea at 9 in the morning, it’s pretty difficult to say, “Hey dude, get the fuck over here in the next five minutes before I lose inspiration.” I have a couple of drum kits at my house, and I keep them miked up, so it’s easier just to sit down and do it myself.”

– The AV Club

“In 1965 it would cost you an arm and a leg to write a record in the studio. But now it seems archaic to say we have to write everything and then schedule this two-week period where everything we’ve worked on this year will be recorded, and that will be the definitive versions of those songs. I just don’t know if that’s how things should be made.”

– The AV Club

Singles vs. Albums

“I prefer [singles] in the instant-gratification way, in the same way that smoking crack will make you feel fucking amazing instantly, but probably working out and eating Spirulina for fucking two years in the long run will be more fulfilling for you. That’s what LPs and singles are to me. A single is really quick, man. You can get it out, and in two months have it on your merch table. And albums can take a really long time. But when you get done with an album, it’s a lot more fulfilling.”

– The AV Club

“Albums work in such a way that I wrote these songs so long ago, by the time they’re out, I’m bored. I’m bored with the idea of them. And for the next year or year and a half, I have to play them. That’s the way putting out records and selling them has been created. Were looking at three year old songs by the time I’m done playing them…The album has its place but I almost see it as a nostalgia, relic type thing.”

– The Village Voice

On Going Solo

“There are limitations. Sometimes you lose perspective and it’s incredibly frustrating when you can’t rely on someone else to help you write a part or work out something. I do kind of miss working with other people. It’s kind of fun to bounce ideas off other people. I really miss that process. But there’s also no compromising.”

– Penny Black Music

“I don’t want to get in a band that’s a gigantic love triangle—with four different dudes who are just like your girlfriend, basically. I don’t want to have that kind of relationship with people right now. I had to compromise.”

– Thrasher

On Being Liked:

“If I ever get to the point where I can get the entire world to adore me, I’m done, because my whole game is me against the world. If too many people are into it, fuck, it just might kill it.”

– The AV Club

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