If success had come along when I was 17 it would either have killed me or sent me completely mad.

- Alex Kapranos

Ideally, musicians belong outside the Establishment. When they cross that line, it's like something in them has died.

- Alex Kapranos

It's very rare that a song falls from your mind complete.

- Alex Kapranos

A lot of bands have the enthusiasm kicked out of them by playing really dreary pub venues that just churn bands through.

- Alex Kapranos

A lot of food criticism has a similar flavor to it, and I'm probably going to write about it in a different way.

- Alex Kapranos

I didn't grasp the basic principle of being a promoter, which was: Put on music but also generate an income. I was on the dole most of the time.

- Alex Kapranos

I think a lot of bands are creatively knackered when they come off tour.

- Alex Kapranos

I'd rather eat a cow-pat on a bun than a bloody McDonalds.

- Alex Kapranos

I'm not a food critic, and I'm not really an authority to write anything on food.

- Alex Kapranos

If I was a fan of someone as a teenager, then it's OK for me to feel completely in awe when I meet them.

- Alex Kapranos

Cinema, which is influenced by every single part of life, is direct and reaches you immediately. And writing - the best writing is complex ideas communicated concisely. And music - if it's a good tune, make sure people can bloody hear it.

- Alex Kapranos

People's musical tastes are fickle, and music can be a fashion.

- Alex Kapranos

The internet is like a gossipy girls' locker room after school, isn't it?

- Alex Kapranos

There are loads of bands I'd love to produce.

- Alex Kapranos

There's a character that I play onstage, and I can't let him loose in the supermarket when I'm buying my beans on toast.

- Alex Kapranos

Traditionally, lots of vagrants and unemployable characters wind up working in kitchens.

- Alex Kapranos

You can only begin to be great when you embrace a sense of your own ridiculousness.

- Alex Kapranos

You really only understand whether a song's good or not when you properly play it out in public for the first time.

- Alex Kapranos

Glasgow's not a media center. When you're there, when you're hanging about, you feel quite detached from musical movements or fashions or anything like that. You do feel quite alone, in a good way.

- Alex Kapranos

Maybe 'Can't Stop Feeling' and 'Turn It On' we'll just release as singles. It's a thing The Beatles used to do which I really loved, the idea of releasing something as a single completely on its own.

- Alex Kapranos