Life's Pleasures Quote by Steve Albini

Albini lands the punch the way he always does: deadpan, practical, and quietly needling. On the surface, he is talking about food. In the studio, it reads as a homely perk - musicians who can cook, choose to cook, and everyone eats better because of it. But the line is really about authorship, self-sufficiency, and distrust of middlemen, which is basically Albini's whole aesthetic in one domestic metaphor.

"Prefer to eat their own cooking" is studio talk dressed up as a kitchen anecdote. He is praising bands that take responsibility for what they make and live with the consequences: no outsourced flavor, no committee decisions, no slick catering that distracts from the work. Cooking in the studio also implies time, patience, and a kind of camaraderie that money can't quite buy. You don't cook for a room unless you plan to be there awhile, unless the session is a shared project rather than a transactional gig.

The subtext is also anti-rock-star glamour. The myth says musicians are decadent; Albini points to an unsexy reality where competence looks like chopping onions between takes. His "I encourage this behavior" sounds like a producer managing workflow, but it's also a value statement: do the work, feed each other, make something real. The final clause - "I also enjoy the benefits" - keeps it from turning sanctimonious. He frames ethics as appetite, and that's why it works: a manifesto disguised as lunch.