Time & Perspective Quote by James Iha

There is a studied flatness to James Iha saying, "I live most of the time in New York now. I have an apartment there". It lands like small talk, but it’s also a quiet status update in the language of creative adulthood: not "I moved", not "I’m starting over", just the pragmatic proof-of-life detail that you can’t really fake unless you’ve committed. New York, in pop mythology, is less a city than a credential. An apartment is the receipt.

The subtext is mobility with an asterisk. "Most of the time" hints at a career built on touring, studio windows, and long stretches of elsewhere. It also sidesteps the romance of permanence. For musicians, especially those whose fame was born in a different scene and era, the question is always whether you’re still in motion or already filed under "legacy". Iha’s phrasing keeps him in the present tense. He’s not narrating a comeback; he’s describing a schedule.

Context matters: Iha comes from a ’90s alternative rock lineage where authenticity was performed through anti-performance. So the line’s power is its refusal to glamorize. No "the energy inspires me", no "the hustle". Just real estate as biography. It reads like a way of saying, I’m still working, still plugged into the circuit, still close enough to the industry and the culture to show up when it counts. In a world that constantly demands an origin story, he offers something more contemporary: logistics.