Creativity Quote by Trevor Dunn

“Being in several, disparate bands is what I thrive on” reads like a quiet manifesto against the way music culture loves to brand people into a single, marketable identity. Trevor Dunn isn’t just describing a busy schedule; he’s rejecting the idea that an artist’s “voice” should be one consistent product. The keyword is “disparate”: not side projects that all orbit the same sound, but genuinely different ecosystems with different rules, audiences, and risks. He’s saying the friction is the point.

Dunn’s career context makes the line land harder. Coming out of scenes where virtuosity and weirdness are currencies (think experimental rock, jazz-adjacent improvisation, and the broader avant network), moving between bands isn’t indecision; it’s a method. Each group becomes a laboratory: a place to test a different role (anchor, disruptor, accompanist), a different relationship to structure, even a different kind of listening. The subtext is that stagnation is the real enemy. One band can turn into a comfort zone, a style you can reproduce on demand; several bands force you to stay porous.

There’s also a subtle jab at the mythology of the lone auteur. Thriving “in several” frames creativity as relational: you become yourself by adapting to other people’s aesthetics, not by protecting a fixed signature. It’s an artist arguing, in one sentence, that consistency is overrated and growth is collaborative.