I didn't want to live in LA again, although I'd go back every couple of months to do an interview, usually with a heavy rock or metal band. And as th…

- Sylvie Simmons

The difference between fiction and journalism is that you can disguise the characters, so you won't get your legs broken, and there's no interview ta…

- Sylvie Simmons

I love Tom [Waits] for the same reason I love Leonard Cohen, which is that they are both one-offs, templates; they both seemed old, or at least dress…

- Sylvie Simmons

A French friend brought over a load of Gainsbourg vinyl and I worked my way through it: by the time I got to L'Histoire De Melody Nelson (1969) I was…

- Sylvie Simmons

Everybody was in tears. You turned on the radio or the television, and it was nothing but Gainsbourg. With typical British music journalist disdain, …

- Sylvie Simmons

Not so much that I wanted to give up rock writing, but I also wanted to try something new. So I moved to a crumbling stately heap on top of a hill in…

- Sylvie Simmons

There's that old cliché which has a lot of basis in truth, that all music journalists are failed rock stars. They all harbour the inner feeling they …

- Sylvie Simmons

I'm not trying to ally myself with the rock stars of the universe.

- Sylvie Simmons

Leonard Cohen can give you "Leonard Cohen" - the self-deprecating wit, the slow, considered speech, the perfectly-honed anecdote - Tom Waits is far m…

- Sylvie Simmons