Education Quote by Arto Lindsay

There is a sly humility in Arto Lindsay’s phrasing that doubles as a flex: “very interesting for me” sounds modest, almost incidental, until you hear what he’s actually claiming. DNA made music “without much technical knowledge at all” is not an apology; it’s an aesthetic manifesto. It frames ignorance as propulsion, a way of sidestepping the trained reflexes that turn music into craft, craft into polish, polish into predictability.

In late-70s New York’s no wave ecosystem - where Lindsay’s band DNA operated like a beautiful malfunction inside CBGB’s mythology - “technical knowledge” wasn’t just about scales or studio chops. It stood in for permission. Conservatory skill, rock professionalism, even punk’s own emerging rules were social gatekeeping mechanisms as much as musical ones. By foregrounding their lack of training, Lindsay smuggles in a critique: the institution that defines “good” playing also defines who gets to play at all.

The line’s real subtext is wonder, not defensiveness. He’s describing a discovery that many musicians lose once they get fluent: the shock of making something feel inevitable without knowing the approved route to it. DNA’s music often sounded like structure under stress - rhythm as argument, melody as abrasion - and this quote suggests that the abrasiveness wasn’t a gimmick. It was the sound of people building a language in public, with curiosity outranking competence and risk valued over correctness.