MY GENERATION has a habit of thinking we aren’t good enough. Always too quick to doubt ourselves. Working with the Japanese taught me to break down those mental barriers.
THE MIND IS A POWERFUL TOOL and we must learn to use it positively. I've learned not to hold myself back from limiting mindsets.
TIMES ARE DIFFERENT NOW. The younger generation is full of individuality. I see them expressing their personalities more and it’s refreshing.
SOCIAL MEDIA has amplified that change. Back then, it was all about human connections, relationships built over time—something I still value today. Whereas sometimes social media paints a very one-dimensional part of the hairstylist or even the business. I guess I am just old school in that way.
I AM NOT A FAN of that sort of branding. We focus on connecting with people, fostering interpersonal interactions, and building relationships.
A TESTAMENT of what we have been doing from the beginning when clients from day one keep returning.
IT’S MEANINGFUL to see clients grow up. Some have been with me since day one and watching them transition from school kids to adults bringing in their own children is truly personal. That’s the best part.
IT ALL STARTED when I was thinking about where I could get my hair cut after relocating to Singapore. Coincidentally, I learned the director of the Japanese parent company was planning to open a salon here.
THINGS JUST FELL INTO PLACE. My stylist knew I was interested, so we had a meeting and that’s how I got into the business.
SWITCHING FROM engineering to hairstyling wasn’t as hard as it seems. I always had an eye for fashion, design and creativity. Hairdressing, to me, is an extension of that.
WHEN you have that interest it’s not difficult to jump over to something you’re passionate about.
I AM FORTUNATE to work with this husband-and-wife duo, both President Design Award winners and founders of Studio Juju. They specialise in furniture and interior design. We’re collaborating to expand their interior design arm.
NOT BOXING MYSELF UP, I aim to present and deliver something slightly different from what you typically see in Singapore’s interior design scene.
I’M NOT AFTER GRAND PLANS. I just want to keep doing what I love and have fun along the way.
BEING SINGAPOREAN in a Japanese trade has its own challenges culturally. Respect isn’t instant. I didn’t know a thing about hair when I started, so it was tough earning my place.
I’M KNOWN to be a quick-tempered person. But over time, I’ve mellowed. This job has taught me patience—something I didn’t always have.
I BELIEVE mistakes are our greatest teachers.
I WOULDN’T CHANGE a thing about my life. Every mistake is a valuable lesson, shaping who we are, just as much as the successes.
IN THE END, I don’t want much. I just want people to think of our salon as a place where they feel good, where they leave with more than just a haircut.
ENSURING our salons are more than just functional—they have a soul. That’s key to me. It’s not just about the haircut; it’s about creating an experience.
BODY LANGUAGE is crucial in this industry. Making clients feel comfortable is key. You don’t need to understand Japanese, but by their tone or the way they speak, you can sense how they’re feeling.
THE JAPANESE have an incredible work ethic, which fascinates me about Japan and its people. It’s great to have more people from Japan joining us; it feels like a cultural exchange.
IT’S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to find a hairstylist. Most people don’t grow up aspiring to be hairstylists; it’s often seen as a fallback option.
THAT’S NOT THE CASE in Japan, where many hairstylists are degree holders. I’ve come to appreciate the value of skill-based jobs, especially as knowledge-based roles may be replaced by AI. I hope more people start recognising the value of these professions.
THE LONGER you stay in this industry, the better you get. The prospects as a hairstylist are limitless.
WE EMPOWER our stylists to explore creative outlets beyond hair. Some have done art-related work or aspire to open their own salons abroad. It’s all about growing artistically and taking breaks to refresh the mind.
THERE’S NO LIMIT. We’re a hair salon at heart, but we explore beyond that. We’ve done pop-ups where our stylists have brought in Japanese brands, engaging with their creativity in new ways.
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Photography Assistant: Tawfiq Ismail
Perry Farrell has always been a provocateur. As the flamboyant lead singer and frontman of Jane’s Addiction in the late 80s and early 90s, he combined an edgy, in-your-face sensibility with his band's high-energy hybrid of metal and punk. By the time Jane's Addiction disbanded in 1991, the group had paved the way for the grunge era and Farrell had earned a moniker as the Godfather of Alternative Music. He built on that résumé by leading the band Porno for Pyros and founding the music festival Lollapalooza.
Jane's Addiction reunited this year to release “Imminent Redemption,” the band’s first single featuring its original lineup in 34 years, and to hit the road for an extensive tour. Everything seemed to be going well, when Farrell, sixty-five, spoke to Esquire for this instalment of our long-running What I've Learned interview series, which is a conversation boiled down to its essence—only the subject’s wisdom appears. But on Friday, September 13, days after we went to press, Farrell had an onstage meltdown during a show in Boston. The singer started a physical altercation with lead guitarist Dave Navarro in the middle of the song "Ocean Size," and had to be restrained. On September 16, the band announced that it had canceled the rest of its tour, and Farrell apologized to his "bandmates, especially Dave Navarro, fans, family and friends" for his actions.
Part of what Jane’s Addiction had going for it was we were all very cocky because we’re all very good at our instruments. That can be amazing because you get to hear amazing virtuosity but you also lose something. You lose humility.
I've been simplifying my life over time. I don't like people that stick their head up too high. I like people that are selfless.
I have an older brother, 10 years older than me, and sister, eight years older. So you might wonder—it’s kind of odd to have children ten years apart.
My family was a broken family. My mother tried to save the family by having a child. It worked out horrendously. My father just went off with a woman and my mother ended up committing suicide. But there was something good. The one great thing is we all loved music. I got my love of music from my sister and my brother. At that time, it was the British Invasion.
On weekends, we'd sit on the porch in Flushing, Queens. People would come by, friends of my brother, friends of my sister and I got to hang out if I was the bartender.
When I first moved out to California, it was from Florida. Even though I was born in New York, in the seventies a lot of the New Yorkers migrated down to Florida. Wise Guys went down there. My dad moved his shop on West 47th Street to Hollywood, Florida.
When I first came to Los Angeles, I knew nobody. My life was basically—I washed dishes, I was a waiter, I was a busboy. I left home, and I had my own stories to tell.
I started as a singer around 1982. We were coming out of post-punk and goth was very popular, and we had not invented yet what they called alternative.
I’d comb my hair down in bangs. Go to a thrift store, get a psychedelic shirt, and show up for the audition. I didn’t even know how to plug in a mic. So sometimes I would get very embarrassed or dejected. They would say, “Have you ever done this before?” And I’d say, “Well, I know I could front a band, but I never have.”
I rented out a studio and I got a tape of Ziggy Stardust because I thought David Bowie was something I could pull off. There's a real skinny kid.
We would go out every night to hear what the sound was off the streets. I found a house in LA. It was very old. It was built for the movie stars. I just got a bunch of different bands to move in. You wrote your name up on the chalkboard if you wanted to rehearse that night. LA at that time was a hotbed of all the new bands.
"The style that I’m trying to fit is “shaman in the highlands of Peru.”
I learned that if you wanted to really have fun and really get radical, you couldn't go to the clubs. At that time, there was something called pay-to-play. Pay-to-play was this really grotesque deal where a lot of kids in the valley that were still living with their parents had to come up with, I think, USD500 to get booked, buy the tickets up front.
When people give me credit for being godfather of alternative, it was because I didn't have USD500.
I saw where I could do things differently. I noticed as a singer nobody was really using effects the same way the guitar players were. So to add to the party, I began to develop the art of dubbing vocals. I still think I’m ahead of the curve in that most singers don’t use effects onstage. They don’t have a pedalboard. I have a box that I keep up close because I use my hands a lot. I use my hands and my feet. It’s like I’m driving something.
Muscles don’t really work with rock ’n’ roll. I see a band with muscles, it looks funny to me. They should be fighting. Skinny kids, they should be making music or art. We don’t have to fight.
Part of writing a good song is that you have to give them a pinch of familiarity and then a pinch of “Wow, what was that? I never heard that before.” That way they can follow something they’ve never experienced and get there. And then at end of the song they'll feel smart because they're onto something few others know about yet.
I’m lucky in that I have Lollapalooza, because otherwise I would not keep my ears to the music at my age. I like to see where the music is going and then see how I fit in.
Everybody learns at such a quick pace now. Before you know it, everybody’s aware of your sound and they’re bored of you. I make a point to not put out too much product. Take my time.
These days I try to dress not ostentatiously. There was a moment in time when I liked to wear ostentatious things, had suits made in London, custom hats made by haberdashers. These days I like to dress so that I can be trusted amongst the people. I don’t want to be looked at and viewed as some flashy dresser.
The style that I’m trying to fit is “shaman in the highlands of Peru.” I like to wear ponchos. But all these things, they’re obtainable. If the simple man wanted to look at me and maybe bite some style, he could.
My dad was a jeweler. He dealt mostly in gold. I think there's a lot of power in beadery and there's a lot of history that goes with beadery in our country.
In my torrid past, I was a very bad drug addict. But what I would do—it really would save my life, each and every time—is I would take a trip and go surfing.
At my height I was surfing with professionals, some of the best in the world. We would go and live on boats for a few weeks, and I’d get my health back. It’s harder now, but I never want to stop surfing. I do believe that the ocean staying down by the ocean, swimming in the ocean, brings your health back. It almost brings you back to the womb. You’re weightless.
I like to study about Jah because I feel that’s a point of unity for the entire universe. It seems like a lot of the fights that start are over religion and if we can just simplify religion, that might be the key to peace.
Sex is the best feeling in the world, right? To be loved and then to be so closely bonded. I think that it is one of the important discussions of our lifetime, to know how to properly love and to know how to properly make love.
In my younger days, I had some great times in bed with people. But I would not advise having any love triangles or too many lovers, because every person deserves proper attention. And a broken heart will kill you just as much as anything.
How long do I want to be a touring musician? Until I die. But I can adjust it now at my age. I demand a day off to heal. The voice is a very fragile instrument. Once it swells, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Some of these musicians, they don't care. They'll play loud. And if they think that the crowd loves you, they'll play even louder.
People have had 30-some-odd years to learn to love us. They don’t get so freaked out by us. We sing along together, beautiful resonations in the room. I often get comments like “You changed my life.”
Maybe they hated themselves and now they love themselves. I’m glad I can still deliver to them.
Originally published on Esquire US
A nine-time Grammy winner and an American music institution, Sheryl Crow has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide and is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. With songs like “Love is a Good Thing,” “Redemption Day”, and “There Goes the Neighbourhood” in her arsenal, she has few peers when it comes to chronicling, as she describes, “the things that I see and the things that disturb my peace.” Her 12th studio album, Evolution, continues the tradition; she wrestles with AI anxieties, rails against Internet trolls and yearns for human connection.
I HAVE BEEN A MUSICIAN since I was old enough to reach the keys on a piano.
THERE WAS A MOMENT when I realised that what I was meant to be doing was not only reflecting but documenting the human experience.
IT’S VERY HARD for me to understand why I’ve had the colossal success I’ve had when I’m not the greatest singer, I’m not the greatest songwriter, I’m not the greatest bass player, guitar player, or producer.
EVERYTHING IS ABOUT the voice in my head that tells me that I’m not enough.
MY CAREER HAS BEEN largely propelled by my need to not just be liked but to be great. I have really come to terms with that. Cancer put that all into perspective—and several bad relationships.
I’VE LOVED SOME AMAZING PEOPLE, and I’ve loved some other people, too.
THE LAST FEW TIMES I’ve been back to LA, I felt melancholy. It’s the feeling of being young and having everything be exciting and full of possibility.
BUT I DON’T REALLY MISS IT. I’m most happy when I’m in this house with my boys in this town.
I’ve loved some amazing people, and I’ve loved some other people, too.
I’VE ALWAYS STRUGGLED with the weight of everything. I come by that genetically.
WHEN I FIRST STARTED TAKING OFF, I could not figure out how to hold all the energy coming at me. So I went and studied with this woman named Sharon Salzberg; she teaches mindfulness meditation.
I DO MINDFULNESS at least 30 minutes in the morning. Wherever I am. Two cups of coffee. Focus on breath.
IT’S A PRACTICE of letting everything go. It’s about finding compassion for yourself and your imperfections.
I GREW UP looking at magazines with Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks, and they were mythical. I didn’t know that fame wasn’t going to feel like those black-and-white photos.
NOBODY, where money is concerned, is trustable.
THERE IS DIVINITY and there’s ego in everything. When you take your analytical “This is who I am and this is what I do”out of it and sit down with that weird, obtuse experience called life, sometimes something you couldn’t imagine surfaces.
I HAVE A FEW SONGS that I think, I don’t even know where that came from.
I TALK ABOUT mental issues because when I was really struggling, I didn’t have an example of somebody who said publicly, “I’m struggling, and this is what I did.” We need to make that normal.
Nobody, where money is concerned, is trustable.
THERE’S NOT A HANDBOOK for how to navigate, as a woman, a business that is predominantly run by men. Or for when you have a strong woman, how that challenges men and their feelings of importance.
I HAVE BEEN ADVISED on numerous occasions to please just tone it down.
I WISH I would shut my mouth but I can’t do that.
WITH CANCER, I had to learn how to say no and put myself first. A year of crying and being mad and not writing and resenting and having fear—and then ultimate joy and adopting a child. There was so much living that went into one year of my life, it seemed like I’d been slapped.
I WOULD NOT WISH cancer on anyone, but for me it was a tremendous—actually, a monumental—gift.
HAVING A DIAGNOSIS like that demands that you rebuild and decide what your life is going to look like and who is going to be in it—and who you are going to be in it.
YOU AND YOU ALONE are responsible for your art.
I LOOK AT WHAT TAYLOR SWIFT has done and think: she’s a powerhouse. The fact that she came up with solutions for how to not allow her music to be a moneymaker for other people when she should be owning it.
YOU WANT TO BE AIRY-FAIRY and making great music and having people love you. But what a distraction.
BY THE TIME my kids came into my life, I didn’t have things that I felt compelled to accomplish. That makes decision-making easy.
I HAVE THIS RELATIONSHIP with these two boys that I’m raising, and I have not manifested somebody coming in and changing that dynamic. That’s not to say I’m going to grow old by myself. I would like not to.
I TELL MY BOYS: “You have a college fund and a therapy fund. I hope you use the college fund, but please use the therapy fund.”
OUR KNEE-JERK NOW is to immediately criticise, vilify. Just observe and try to breathe love through your heart.
YOU’RE HERE for a nanosecond. Why be an asshole?
Originally published on Esquire US
Fifty years ago, Stephen King published Carrie, a slim volume about a bullied teenager and the violent revenge she exacts on her high school classmates. Seventy-six books later, King is arguably the most famous writer in America. Through bloodcurdling novels like It, Pet Sematary, and The Shining, the author has carved out his place as the undisputed master of horror fiction. With more than 350 million copies sold and many of his books adapted for the screen (sometimes multiple times over), King’s dark imagination is a dominant force in American culture. Now seventy-six years old, he still writes at a brisk clip from his home in Bangor, Maine. His latest, You Like It Darker, is out now.
Fame is a pain in the ass. The older you get, the more of a pain in the ass it is. But you have to realise that it comes with the territory. It’s just part of what you do.
There’s this old Spanish saying: “God says, ‘Take what you want and pay for it.’ ” That’s the case with being famous.
I knew a lot when I was seventeen. But since then, it’s been a constant process of attrition.
You can’t think of writing as an adult pursuit or anything that’s important. That’s a good way to turn into a gasbag and start to think that you’re really fucking important. You’re not. You just do your work.
I have to work every day because I have to keep it fresh. If you take a few days off, it all starts to look kind of tacky—like an old campaign poster that’s running in the rain.
It doesn’t always work. I’ve got stories that just ram up against a brick wall. They’re in my right desk drawer. I don’t look in there.
If it’s a good review, it can be dismissed. If it’s a bad review, well, then that’s something you obsess over a little bit.
The important thing about failing is that it should always be a learning experience.
When I have a good idea, I just know. It’s like if you have a bunch of cut-glass goblets set up and you’re hitting them with a spoon. Clunk, clunk, clunk. And then one goes ding.
In every marriage, after the shine is off, then you get down to the serious work of building a relationship.
You can’t let the sun go down on your anger. These all sound like fucking platitudes. They become platitudes for a reason.
Be there for your kids. Say yes. Say yes as much as you can.
What would I tell my twenty-year-old self? Stay away from dope and stay away from booze. Because you have a tendency to go too far.
I’ve been in recovery a day at a time for a long time now. All I know is what works for me: staying out of the wine aisle in Publix.
They say that you don’t go to a whorehouse to listen to the piano player, and if you hang around the barbershop, sooner or later you’re going to get your hair cut. So I try to stay away from temptation.
I like to use my imagination. I like to go for walks. I dig the world in general.
Ten per cent of my tweets are political because every now and then, I just get so irritated about something. It doesn’t change anybody’s mind, but it’s good to be able to say it. In the meetings that I go to, we say, “You have to claim your chair.” Sometimes I feel like, yeah, I have to claim my chair.
There’s this saying that if you’re not a liberal in your teens, you don’t have a heart, and if you’re still a liberal in your twenties and thirties, you don’t have a brain.
I think that, actually, if you’re a liberal in your teens, you probably don’t have a brain. And if you’re not a liberal by the time you’re in your thirties and forties, you don’t have a heart.
If you ask what I learned from my accident, it would be: Number one, stay on the sidewalk. I was walking in the country, and the guy came over the hill and hit me.
Other than that, you learn about pain. But it doesn’t do any good, because you forget. The body has a way of forgetting the trauma. I suffered a lot, and the writing helped me because it took me away. That’s probably a healthy thing. You don’t want to live your life in a defensive crouch.
I can cook fish a thousand different ways, but I’m also one hell of a breakfast cook. I make a great cheese omelet.
I’d like to be known as somebody who died merry—who did his work as best as he could and was decent to other people.
I think what people will say is “This is the scary guy—the guy who wrote the horror novels.” But I’d like to be known as somebody who was just a decent human being.
Originally published on Esquire US
WE ARE AT A CROSSROADS. One road leads to extinction and the other could lead to a more peaceful, sustainable, healthier and joyful planet. Unfortunately, our emotional and spiritual development has not kept up with scientific knowledge.
IT IS WITHIN our power to reverse this calamity, and that can change if humanity has a shared vision. If we complement one another’s strengths, if we have maximum diversity of knowledge and if we connect, emotionally and spiritually... then it could emerge into a new paradigm.
ALL PEOPLE are interested in, is how many likes they get on their selfies. We have sacrificed ourselves for our selfies.
YEAH, I think celebrity is another way on how we replace ourselves with our selfies. It’s the human condition. They like to think that there’s somebody who’s superior but there isn’t.
I USED TO MEET people on the streets who told me, I read your books. Now they say my grandmother used to read your books.
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION is one particular aspect of mantra meditation. And the mantras that I use take you beyond thought. But now we see that that’s only one form of meditation. [There are others like] mindfulness, reflective inquiry, body awareness, awareness of mental space.
FUNDAMENTAL REALITY cannot be accessed by a system of thought. Whether it’s science or philosophy or any other system. If you want to know reality, you have to go beyond human constructs. Meditation is the only way to go beyond human constructs.
EVERYTHING WE TALK ABOUT IS A story. Stories are maps of reality, not reality. You can’t eat the menu, you have to eat the meal. And so if you want to eat the meal, you have to go beyond rational thought.
MY FAVOURITE BOOKS haven’t changed. Have you heard of Lost Horizon? It was by a guy called James Hilton. It was the first time people were introduced to the idea of Shangri-La. I have other favourites like W Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge; Rudyard Kipling classics; Arthur Conan Doyle... Shakespeare’s my favourite. I used to be able to recite every play of Shakespeare.
ACTING is a very interesting profession for good actors. I occasionally watch movies and the last one was Oppenheimer because I was curious about the person who had the insanity to create an atomic bomb.
YOU SAW OPPENHEIMER, RIGHT? What an ordinary guy. Do you read Einstein’s biography? I mean, the amount of human problems he had. When you look at famous people, whether they are in the arts or humanity or science or spirituality... everybody is fake. Including me.
IF THERE WAS a biography made on my life? [It’ll be an] authentic fake. At least, I don’t deny it.
HOW OTHERS depict me is a projection of themselves. The story you write about me... isn’t about me, it’s about you because of the questions you’re asking, right? It’s like using AI for a prompt: you’re asking me questions that the next person will not. Every story you write is about you.
IF I HAVE A GRAVE, it would say on the [tombstone], “Where you are, I once was. Where I am, you’ll soon be”.
I HAD A GOOD TIME. Been there, done that.
I WAS NOT SELF-AWARE as a physician-in-training. I graduated medical school in 1970 and went to the United States immediately. The first 10 years of my training, internship president’s fellowship, neuroscience, I was very much part of the system.
IN THOSE DAYS, doctors smoked; we all smoked. Even during the medical conference, doctors would advertise for Lucky Strike or Camel cigarettes. A very interesting time.
WORK doesn’t start until it’s 11am. When I get up at six, I reflect. Meditate; I do yoga. After five I don’t work any more. Weekends too.
I HAVE NO SOCIAL LIFE. I find social conversation very boring. Other than, spending time with friends and family, I don’t go to parties or watch movies.
IT’S DISTRESSING but I watch the news just to keep up with the world. Everybody’s fighting over nothing.
I WANT to be known as an interesting guy. But he’s not there any more. Move on. [laughs]
DO YOU know your great-grandfather? Do you know the grandfather of your grandfather? No. But because of him, you’re here. Every cell in your body has the genes of your ancestors. That is the legacy.
MY NEW BOOK is called Digital Dharma and I think AI, like any other great scientific discovery, can be used to heal the world or to destroy the world. But, at least, we have the intelligence to not allow that to happen.
THEN AGAIN, humans are crazy.
AI IS AUGMENTED HUMAN intelligence: it doesn’t say anything original. It’s a large language model that has no consciousness; doesn’t feel hungry; doesn’t have sex; doesn’t fear death... but it’s super intelligent as a language model..
A LOT OF PEOPLE think I am crazy. Maybe. I don’t know. If war and terrorism and eco-destruction and extinction of species, and poison in your food chain and chronic health and absence of joy is normal, then I don’t want to be normal.
I HAVE NO FEAR. I’ve no fear of death or anything. Zero. My stress level is zero.
TO GET TO THAT STAGE [of having no fear] is to recognise that you’re not your body and you’re not your mind. The only thing that’s real is consciousness; consciousness without form. It doesn’t have borders, therefore, it’s infinite.
Photography: Gan Kah Ying
Art Direction: Joan Tai
GIVE A PIECE OF BLANK PAPER TO A KID, give them some paints, they will automatically create great work—great colour, forms, lines, space—without knowing much about art. That’s the kind of artist I want to be.
I STUDIED with Liu Kang at a very young age, 11 or 12, drawing and things. But it was Chen Wen Hsi who really inspired me. I looked at him, he would constantly stay in the studio, paint, not much socialising. I don’t think he had any bad habits. That inspired me.
INSPIRATION is more important than learning.
ART IS ACHIEVED through your own experiments, your own practice, your own hard work. It’s not something somebody can teach you. It cannot be taught. It can only be inspired.
THE MAIN THING IS you have to make a painting breathe. You have to give it life. That life makes a great painting. No matter what kind of painting it is, traditional or contemporary, all the great artists of the past bring life to their work. If it’s dead, kaput. So, I’m constantly fighting to achieve that.
I’LL FOCUS ON THE DETAILS, study a little patch, alter it. But then, you have to constantly step back and look at the bigger picture.
KNOWING when a work of art is finished is like when you accomplish a sexual encounter with a woman— when it’s done, you know it’s done.
A LOT OF EUROPEAN ARTISTS lead an exotic lifestyle, a more exciting life than most people. This kind of experience in life, I think, generates a great deal of energy that then goes into your writing, or your painting, or your music.
EXPERIENCE is the fuel for us, as artists.
EACH MAN IS DIFFERENT, each person is different, what you learn is what you are. It’s not “you are what you eat”—what you learn is what you are. So, all the things that I’ve learnt, experienced, encountered over the years, they have come to make me who I am. That’s what I’m translating into my work.
I LOVE THE FEMALE FORM. All the great artists will tell you the same thing. The lines, the textures, the curves are almost like a landscape. You’ve got hills, valleys, streams...
IT’S IMPORTANT to have good friends. Correct friends. If you have the wrong type of friends, you become the wrong kind of person.
AN ART CAREER IS A MARATHON. You’ve got to keep running, keep fighting. I had to make a living, so I did all kinds of jobs. Through this, you learn. Life is formed by your experiences.
I THINK HUMAN BEINGS are still uncivilised in many senses. Just like in the primitive days, we’re still fighting over a piece of meat—but today, a piece of meat means money and power.
YOU WANT TO BE AN ARTIST? I say, don’t get married. If you do get married, don’t have children. If Van Gogh had a wife and children, there would have been no Van Gogh.
YOU KNOW artists never have a happy life. Well, a few do, but maybe less than one per cent.
A COUNTRY WITHOUT GREAT ART, we cannot consider a great country. Simple. No matter what kind of weapons you have, it doesn’t count. Art is the thing. Think back to all the great countries in history: Egypt, China, Rome—why we consider them as great is because of their great culture.
SOME TIME AGO, they said, “Painting is dead.” That’s propaganda. You can all lay out all kinds of reasons to support any idea.
IF YOU HAVE A GOOD EYE, if you’ve been educated. If you’ve visited a lot of good artists’ exhibitions and museums, right away you know if something is great art or not great art. You know at first sight. It’s like we know if someone is good or bad, by judging through just appearance. They say don’t judge a book by its cover—that’s not true, the cover is important. You right away know good from bad.
THOSE WHO PAINT will know Jackson Pollock is wonderful, they’ll know Willem De Kooning is great. Those who don’t paint, but who have a good eye and good education will also know that these are great artists. All the truly great artists today, on the surface of this earth, they’re genuine. I’ve seen a lot of artists come and go. But the great artists stay.
SOMETIMES there’s a very thin line between commercial art and fine art—a very thin line.
PRETTY, DECORATIVE FLOWER PAINTINGS can be pleasing. But ugliness can be fine art. The German Expressionists, for example. So ugly, so naive, so childlike and yet, so very powerful.
OUR LIFE, we are only a fish splash. We are nothing, you know?
Photography: Jaya Khidir
I LIKE TAKING the road less travelled. I used to fly to Tokyo a lot but now I want to check out other places. Southeast Asia is an area I’d like to visit more. I’d just flown in from Manila. It’s an amazing city. Great people, very strong energy, a lot of things happening there.
THE SALVAGES is a long-term endeavour. I don’t see it as, okay, we got to get to the next big thing. The Salvages is a brand that will outlast me. I don’t want it to be the coolest, hottest thing right now and then it’s gone the next season, I want it to be evergreen.
THE ’80S was when I grew up and the culture of that time is what I know best.
WHEN I WAS INTRODUCING CRUMPLER in Singapore, I had to bang down doors and hit the bike stores. But no one wanted to stock it. Singapore hasn’t cultivated a messenger bag culture yet. So, I pushed it to the fashion stores; I did a hip-hop party at Zouk to promote Crumpler; I was seeding the bags to friends. Word caught on and next thing you know, it became really big. And when Crumpler became popular, I began on my next journey.
MY FIRST STORE, Ambush, was small and niche. We sold T-shirts and toys from KAWS; cool stuff that friends from New York were making. You can say that we imported [street] culture to Singapore in the 90s.
SURRENDER is my second store and I did it with James [Lavelle] from Mo’ Wax. A good friend with whom I still keep in touch, James and I brought in Japanese brands like Neighborhood, visvim, Undercover. Back then those labels were not available outside of Japan. Maybe Hideout in London but generally, those brands were usually sold in Japan. We were the first store to bring in the Ura-Harajuku culture.
“BE AUTHENTIC to yourself, your tribe will find you.” That’s the best advice Nicolette [Earn’s partner] gave me.
PEOPLE DRAW ENERGY from possessions. You buy a piece of art or clothing and you draw inspiration from it. It feels good that you’ll want to share the experience with other people.
I WAS INTO records, toys, furniture, art, everything, you know. Now, I’m at a point where I prize the experience as well. Covid-19 kinda flipped the switch on my thinking.
YOU NEED to let go of things to be happier.
IT’S IMPORTANT to feel like an outsider. If you stick with your comfort zone, you’ll stagnate. You’ve got to keep moving, you’ve got to be continually inspired by what’s happening around you.
EVERYTHING is a learning process.
I GET A LOT OF JOY from designing a space. All my stores, I designed them. Creating new spaces is basically like creating your own little world.
IN THE ’80S, I was into post-punk and early Hip Hop. From 2004, I would progress to something else, like rock or whatever. Back then, Zouk played a lot of house music and I just didn’t get it. I was into Hip Hop. Fast-forward a decade or two and I’m understanding house music and disco. Turns out after all these years, I simply just enjoy good music.
I’VE MET MY HEROES my heroes and so far they have turned out to be really decent human beings.
LOLA, our West Highland White Terrier is eight and you’d be surprised by her personality. She just brings joy to us every day. Before Lola, I didn’t have much experience in taking care of a dog and I learnt so much from Lola.
DOGS ARE PURE; they love you unconditionally. We should learn how to love and receive love. That’s very important that Lola has taught us how to love.
I’M AFRAID of not doing enough. Unfinished projects, y’know?
I DO GET A LOT OF CREDIT—maybe more than I deserve—from people in the countries that I travelled to. They’d say, oh, your store inspired me to set up my own thing. I’m glad those people resonated with me and what I did.
I’D RATHER BE known as a guy who has done great things, instead of owning them.
WHY DO I NOT SMILE IN PHOTOS? Probably comes naturally to me. Or maybe I look better without smiling.
IF YOU’D ASKED ME pre-COVID if I would open another retail space, I’d be like, nah, I don’t wanna go backwards. But now, I think it’s time and soon.
THESE DAYS, I don’t want to explain about myself too much. People will understand.
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Photography Assistant: Natalie Sienna
I USED TO BE quite on when I started shooting. But now, I’m getting more and more relaxed. Photography is not a rat race.
I’VE BEEN SHOOTING for 13 years. I just do my thing. If I get likes on my IG, great. If not, that’s ok, too.
ORGANICALLY, my work made me who I am today. There was no agenda or game plan. I just kept shooting until things happened to me.
MY DAY JOB is in advertising but I don’t grind at work. I just make sure I have enough.
THERE ARE TIMES when I feel like I’m not doing much in the rat race but you know what? It is great for my mental health.
AM I SHOOTING to leave a legacy? I hope that whatever I’ve done amounts to something bigger.
THERE ARE MANY GOOD PHOTOGRAPHERS out there and 13 years later, I still get exhibited. That’s something that still surprises me.
MAYBE I’M IGNORANT but I don’t know anything about camera specs. I’m more visual than technical. There are times, however, that I force myself to understand the camera settings. I had to shoot people on the escalators but I can’t capture a good clear image on auto mode. I had to learn how to shoot manually.
REGARDLESS of what industry you are in, there will always be haters.
ONE TIME, I was talking to Kevin [WY Lee] and I told him how envious I was that other photographers get to shoot awesome pictures overseas. He asked what was wrong with shooting in Singapore; if you cannot shoot in your own playground, what makes you so sure that you can shoot in another person’s playground? That stuck with me. For the first six years, I just shot in Singapore.
ABOUT 90 PER CENT OF THE TIME, I’d shoot without asking the subjects for their permission. Because what I want, is the spontaneity of the moment. If I did ask them, something in the moment would be lost.
I’VE MADE SHORT FILMS but I’m more of a still person. You need a crew for filmmaking and the amount of time and involvement needed is too much for me to handle.
“PHOTOGRAPHY IS SELF-MASTURBATION.” That statement is true because in any craft, there’s some sort of conceit involved. I posted that on my IG story and it caused a lot of people to unfollow me. I still stand by the statement though.
BACK BEFORE INSTAGRAM had the archive feature, I used to Marie Kondo my IG feed. Every year, I’d delete them all. There was no reason to keep the images. It was just a matter of housekeeping.
A FEW PEOPLE have asked me to remove photos of them on my IG. In 2010, when I was shooting at the Tanjong Pagar railway station, I shared a shot of a couple kissing. One of them messaged me and asked me to remove it, so I did.
NO ONE WILL EVER SEE this photo but one time, in an alleyway in Little India, I saw a naked man when the door opened. He was sitting there, fully exposed and smoking. It took me aback. My camera was already in my hands so I secretly took a shot.
I USE AI to create fake images that I couldn’t capture in real life. Like the images of Bugis Street in the old days. I don’t have a time machine so this is the next best thing.
NOTHING BEATS BEING THERE: AI can only replicate, it can never duplicate. AI is going to be part of our lives. So, we just have to work with it. It’ll never replace the real moments but it’ll help in other ways.
OFF THE TOP of my head, I’m afraid that I may not have tomorrow to take another photo.
EVERY DAY, I’ll make the best of it. It doesn’t necessarily have to even be about photography. I can just enjoy my time by drinking a beer; that is good enough for me.
IT’S ALL GUT FEEL. It’s hard to explain what I’m going for when I shoot.
DON’T DEBATE with people because you can’t reason with them no matter how good your argument is. I just won’t bother.
THE NEW GENERATION of photographers is doing an amazing job. I don’t get why the old guard is so angry with them.
WHATEVER YOU DO IN LIFE, it’s important to let go. Once you do that, you will feel more at peace.
WHEN I STARTED PHOTOGRAPHY, I felt the pressure but that feeling didn’t last that long. I used to chase after the image. I’d hunt for that moment and when I don’t get it, I get fed up. Eventually, I learnt to just let the image come to me.
WHEN YOU SEE ME on the street, just say hi. I may look fierce but I won’t bite.
NOTHING WRONG with mimicking someone’s style. You have to start somewhere so you’ll often shoot like the photographer you admire. After a while, you’ll find your voice.
WHAT I DON’T LIKE are people trying to get that overnight fame. It’s obvious, you can tell. I don’t bash them, I’ll just let them be because how long can they last? It’s tiring.
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, 52, is the cofounder and drummer of the Roots, the house band for The Tonight Show since 2014. But that's just one of his many jobs. He’s also a highly successful DJ, record producer, podcaster, author, and filmmaker—not to mention a walking encyclopedia of musical history. In 2022, the first movie he directed, Summer of Soul, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. "I'm a guy just living out his dreams, that's all," he says, speaking to us from his home in New York City. He is currently working on a documentary about funk pioneer Sly Stone and hosting an interview series on YouTube called "Quest for Craft." His eighth book, Hip-Hop is History, will be released in 2024.
The most Philadelphia thing about me is my entitled double-parking tendencies nationwide. To be from Philadelphia is to park where you want with absolutely no repercussions. You do that in Los Angeles and you’re instantly getting a ticket. I learned that quickly.
The blood in my veins and my DNA is made up of Soul Train. Even now I have all eleven hundred episodes of Soul Train, and I keep it on a twenty-four-hour loop on all televisions in my house.
My dad was a fifties doo-wop legend. His name was Lee Andrews. Lee Andrews & the Hearts was the name of his band.
My parents did not believe in babysitting. At no point did I feel like I was being tricked into the family business; it was just my everyday life. But I also realized, in that Michael Jackson way, I definitely missed out on a childhood.
I was a stage manager by the age of ten.
When you’re Black and living in America, you’re living in fight or flight.
Fun for me was binge-shopping for records with Dad every two weeks, We'd head to the King James record store and we’d buy about $200 worth of LPs and about US$100 worth of 45’s. We would give said 33’s and 45’s to my dad’s band to learn songs. My dad’s band would take the hits and I would get the leftovers.
My last non-showbiz job, when I graduated high school, was selling accidental death and dismemberment insurance. I’m very grateful those guys fired me on my birthday in 1992 when I wanted to take the day off. Five months later, we started busking and the Roots as you know it were born. Then we had a record deal a year later.
When you’re Black and living in America, you’re living in fight or flight. When you’re living in fight or flight, you’re living in fear. Safety and survival come first.
The best thing about my parents is they gave me the equipment to dream. The B side to that is that I don’t think I allowed myself to dream much. I heard a lot of “Get a backup plan.” Now I just realised, at this age, “Oh, I have dreams.”
The easiest part of making Summer of Soul was that I had those gifts in me all along. I was a natural-born storyteller, as I love both history and music. The hardest thing was discovering how easy it was. At first, I was like, “Why me?” I ran away from the prospect of even doing the movie, and it found me. It found and attacked me.
I’m a humongous fan of Rocky and Bullwinkle. People do not give kids enough credit for how smart they are. Rocky and Bullwinkle are not condescending at all.
Before the age of forty-six, I listened to only music. Now 80 percent of everything I listen to are tuning forks.
I also listen to a lot of binaural beats. It’s just the sound of a tone. It’s weird to say, “Yeah, 432 megahertz is my favourite song ever. That’s my favourite tone.” That’s what I wake up and sleep to.
I almost feel as though I could be the Drake of binaural beats.
Food is a social adhesive. If there’s a chef in the budget, you’ll really ensure that people are going to show up. Because starving artists like food.
Making French toast with croissants is my thing.
In the beginning, I enjoyed hip-hop because it challenged me. Suddenly I’m hearing my parents’ record collection inside of a Public Enemy album, inside of a Tribe Called Quest album. Once I heard that, then I’m like, “Oh, this is amazing.”
I have a life coach. A month after I won my Oscar, she was like, “All right, you’ve got to get in the big leagues now. Now you’re going to have to have a chief of staff.”
It’s one of the wisest things that I’ve ever done. I used to just stand in the eye of the storm and make decisions. I never allowed myself to have just time.
There are four things that I do every morning without fail or else my day is out of whack.
When I first wake up, I spend ten minutes in absolute gratitude. Sometimes it’s just saying thank you for the color red. Thank you for these socks on my feet. You have to be in a constant state of gratitude to the universe. The second thing is deep breath work. The third thing I do is stretch.
The fourth thing is affirmations. In the beginning, I felt stupid as hell, but I’m in a muscle-memory place with it now. You go to the mirror and start talking to yourself. You’ve got to go from a state of “Am I?” to “I am.” Usually I just say very short, simple mantras: I am worthy, I am loved, I am talented, I am smart.
On Saturday mornings, I write a complete 50-step dream goal—the 50 things that I want to achieve. And I have to say that my manifesting record is almost like 80 per cent.
Originally published on Esquire US
Interviewed by Cal Fussman, August 21, 2014, originally published in the November 2014 issue of Esquire.
I've been very fortunate. I'm doing what I love and I'm getting away with it, you know?
Fame comes and goes. Longevity is the thing to aim for.
If music sounds dated, it means it wasn't very good in the first place.
Music teaches my painting and painting teaches my music.
I was sketching in a slit trench, hiding out, waiting for the Germans. All of a sudden, I heard a whistle. I knew immediately that it was coming right at us. The noises that it made were unbelievable. It overcame me. So I ran as fast as I could from that trench. I was twenty-five feet away when the shell hit exactly where I'd been sketching. What did it teach me? it thought me to be against war.
Sing like it's an opening night.
Never open with a closer—that comes from Count Basie.
Emerson wrote about how ignorant it is for people to be religious and say My God is better than yours. That was 1841. We still haven't learned.
Respect eliminates hate.
I did a show once with Louis Armstrong—a television show. and It was one hell of a show. All of a sudden, as Louis was playing, a fly landed on his nose. So he blew it off. He kept singing, and the fly came back on his nose. So he blew it off again. It was being taped, and everyone in the audience was holding their stomach, laughing. They didn't want to let their laughter out and ruin his performance. When Louis finished, everybody broke up. And then the director came out and said: "Let's do one more take without the fly." But that was the take they should've put on TV.
When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art.
When I was starting out, I used to stay onstage too long. Instead of criticising me, Fred Astaire told me, "What I've learned is when you get a set together that's absolutely perfect, go in and pull out fifteen minutes of it." That was his way of telling me that less is more.
I can't live in San Francisco—I'd never have an ounce of privacy. When I go to San Francisco, I know how the president feels.
Jazz is so fabulous, because you do the same song you did the night before differently than you did the night before.
My mother was a dressmaker. We were very poor. But she said: "Always have a clean suit, a white shirt, and a black pair of pants and you'll be always dressed."
You can go anywhere in black and white.
Ella Fitzgerald used to say "We're all here." Three words. That really says it all. That's the way to treat people. "We're all here."
Luck is something that happens at the right time.
Any great performer I've ever met has been frightened to go on.
If the artist doesn't give a shit, why should the audience?
I got that from a cabdriver years ago. He said: "You singers, you're all losers compared to the singers I grew up with." I said: "How come?" He said: "Years ago, Al Jolson and Ethel Merman and people like them came out onstage and they hit the back of the house! They didn't have a microphone." He said: "You guys are faking it." So I said to myself: Let me try it. When I'm in an acoustical hall, let me sing a song at the end a cappella. At first, I didn't know what was gonna happen, but then I saw the reaction. This is good! So I left it in.
My father used to sing on a mountain in Italy, and the whole valley would hear him. I have a photo of me singing "O Sole Mio" in the same exact spot. My son Danny was talking to some people and he came up with this idea: What do you think of Tony and Lady Gaga singing "O Sole Mio" in Italian? They went crazy. Having your kids involved in your career like that is very satisfying.
Everything old becomes new again.
I'm not trying to be bigger than anybody. My game is just to be one of the best.
I'm eighty-eight—I have an awful lot to learn. My dream is to get better and better as I get older.
Lately, I can't believe it. I'm getting four or five standing ovations a night.
Originally published on Esquire US
Wisdom and advice from and about dear ole dad that has appeared in the pages of Esquire over the decades. Come, sit by the knee and discover what people have learned about fatherhood.
Fatherhood? I love it. It introduced an element of fear into my life. When you’re a bachelor, you don’t give a shit. You can do anything. But when you become a father, you get scared about everything. —Alex Trebek, April 2003
After all these years, our father has never understood that we, his children, tend to gravitate toward the very people he’s spent his life warning us about. —David Sedaris, June 1998
I would envision different scenarios in which I would become violent reacting to people’s reactions to my children—especially to my severely handicapped child. Eventually, he taught me that was not necessary. Just by himself. By being a gift to us. He showed us how to have faith and belief and inner strength and to never give up. —Neil Young, January 2006
My mother used to say to me when I was a kid: “I’d throw myself in front of a truck for you.” Over and over again. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. “What do you mean, you want to throw . . . you’ll die.” I say that to my kids now. —Gene Simmons, July 2002
Children learn from what you are rather than what you tell them. What you try to jam into their heads isn’t going to be worth beans if the way you’re living your life doesn’t look like that. —Alan Arkin, January 2007
My daddy said, “When the sun comes up, boy, you get up. When the sun go down, dammit, you go down.” —Al Green, November 2001
My dad didn't pass down any soufflé recipes. For him, it was all about the sandwich, and he taught me to pay attention to every part. That meant meats and cheeses sliced to order from the deli and using bakery bread, light but sturdy, so it won’t get soggy when it comes in contact with the filling. You want to slice the bread yourself so that you can balance the ratio of the filling to your bread—let’s say 30 percent filling to 35 percent bread on either side. The last consideration is the most important: You must offset the richness of the meat with some acidity, whether pickles [or] slaw. Because whether it’s made by the dad or the son, a good sandwich is about relationships. —Michael Symon, June/July 2012
Children teach you that you can still be humbled by life, that you learn something new all the time. That’s the secret to life, really . . . I’m still working because I learn something new all the time. It’s the secret to relationships—never think you’ve got it all. —Clint Eastwood, January 2009
Regardless of whether I might prefer another woman to my wife, I recoil from the possibility of harming my children, putting a blight on their budding young lives, robbing them of what I promised by inference in bringing them into the world. When I think of that, when I look upon my fine intelligent son, my adorable lovely small daughter, the mere thought of a broken home fills me with horror. The emotion of joy which my children arouse in me is mighty as the overture to Tannhäuser, a crescendo of glorious music beside which the pleasures of infidelity are no more than the quaverings of a tubercular saxophone, trivial and without power. —Anonymous, June 1939
He used to say that I must wish I had a father who didn’t drink so much, and I’d always say no, that I knew a lot of fathers, and some of them didn’t drink as much as he did, but that despite this he was far and away the best father I’d seen. —Ben Cheever, November 1988
It is our nightmare, of wanting desperately to protect our children, not least of all from ourselves. The American father lives inside the discrepancy between what he hopes for his children and what he does to them. —John Leonard, December 1975
My father would say, “Do the best you can. And then the hell with it.” He always looked at the effort grade rather than the final grade. —Ted Kennedy, January 2003
What do I do well as a father? I’m there all the time. I give unconditional love. And I have a lot of skills in terms of getting them to express themselves. I’m good with handy hints—if they can tell me what their problem is—’cause I’ve had a lot of problems in life myself. I make an effort to expose them to things. I want them to have a deep, inner feeling that it’s all right to be happy, that you don’t have to be constantly manufacturing problems that you don’t really have. —Jack Nicholson, January 2004
I saw my father three times in the next ten years. And what times those were . . . Running to meet him in the hotel hallway, doors flashing past, into his arms and he smelled of cigarette smoke. Later during numerous of my identity crises I would blow smoke through my clothing to recapture those moments. —William S. Burroughs Jr., September 1971
My father was a lesson. He had his own bakery, and it was closed one day a week, but he would go anyway. He did it because he really loved his bakery. It wasn’t a job. —Christopher Walken, June 2009
Tonight, Cecelia and will sleep together in the narrow hospital bed, the baby on my chest: seven pounds, seven ounces, the weight of my entire world. —Daniel Voll, June 1999
One rule of parenting? Forgive everything. —Michael Caine, December 2014
From: Esquire Us
