Creativity Quote by Steve Albini

It lands like a tour memo disguised as a moral code: take care of your basic needs, refuse the romance of self-destruction, and don’t let the road turn you into a helpless brand. Coming from Steve Albini - a figure who’s spent decades puncturing rock’s fake mystique - the line reads less like lifestyle advice and more like a rebuke of an industry that profits when young bands burn out, stay broke, and call it authenticity.

“Buy groceries” is pointedly unglamorous. Not “hunt the perfect dive bar” or “live on gas station jerky,” but do the boring, adult thing. Albini’s intent is practical (you’ll play better, think clearer, spend less), but the subtext is anti-extractive: if you can feed yourself cheaply and consistently, you’re harder to manipulate by promoters, labels, and the whole ecosystem that normalizes chaos as the price of art.

“Even on the road” matters because touring is where mythmaking happens - where deprivation gets framed as commitment. Albini flips that script. The road isn’t a sacred trial; it’s logistics. Treat it that way and you keep more agency: you’re not forced into predatory buyouts, bar tabs, and “exposure” dinners that drain what little money you have.

In Albini’s world, competence is a kind of rebellion. The sentence is blunt because it’s meant to travel: something you can pass from band to band, like a patchable cable or a saved contact for the one venue that pays on time. It’s punk ethics translated into survival math.