Life & Mortality Quote by Glenn Tipton

Refusing the romantic myth of the tortured genius, Glenn Tipton frames creativity as a survival tactic: not inspiration striking, but a choice not to “crawl in the corner and die.” The bluntness matters. It’s not poetic despair; it’s the kind of plain-language brinkmanship that people use when they’re trying to talk themselves out of an abyss. By setting “die” next to the humble mechanics of “putting pen to paper,” he collapses the distance between crisis and craft. Songwriting becomes an emergency exit.

The quote also sneaks in a hard truth about making art in public: you often begin before you have a plan. Tipton admits he “had no idea what for or who” he’d work with, puncturing the retrospective narratives we love to tell about careers as destiny. In rock culture especially, we’re trained to treat success as inevitable, as if the riffs were always marching toward an arena. Tipton offers the opposite: direction is something you grope toward in the dark, and collaborators are not preordained soulmates but people you meet once you’re already moving.

Subtextually, this is a statement about agency under pressure. The “decided” is doing heavy lifting. Even when everything feels stripped down to bare endurance, he claims one controllable action: make something. That mindset tracks with heavy metal’s emotional function at its best - not escapism, but transmutation. You don’t beat the darkness by denying it; you reroute it into volume, structure, and a song that proves you’re still here.