Ryan Adams: Kinda just got a vibe.
Jeff Koons: It’s all Band-Aid dots.
Adams: It sounds so brutal and old-school and great.
Koons: It’s about girls shopping for shoes.
Adams: [Long pause] Huh.
***
Koons: Popeye takes that spinach, and strength comes—art kind of brings that transcendence into our life, so I like these parallels.
Adams: No, not really. Fuck that.
Koons: You are young and you don't know what art can be—you don't know when you are older either—but the first part is the self-acceptance, this inward journey.
Adams: [Laughs]
***
Koons: I want higher states of experience, of excitement.
Adams: Some nights are pretty rough.
Koons: [Shifts attention to computer screen]
***
Adams: The trend is to find something wrong with everything.
Koons: You don’t have to know anything.
Adams: What do you mean?
Koons: Everything is a system to control every gesture as if I did it.
Adams: Maybe I’ve not been putting enough emphasis on that. How do I say this?
Koons: You just do it.