Fred Armisen

“Fereydun, that's my dad's name. My grandmother, my dad's mom, when she was pregnant, she was dating a man from Persia, a Persian gentleman. It wasn't his child, but he was still very support...”

“The bands that were big in '77, like the Clash and the Sex Pistols and Talking Heads, I got into them in the early '80s. And it changed my life. It got into my DNA.”

“There's something really easy and just somehow un-crowded about the Portland airport. Every time I go there I'm like, 'Why is this so easy and sweet?'”

“When I first started going to Portland, people told me about Stumptown. They were like 'Oh, it's the best coffee,' and I thought, 'How good could it really be?' I'm like, 'Sure, great, uh......”

“Something about Portland just really resonated with me.”

“Sometimes in Portland I'm like, 'Who is funding this city?' It's doing great - there's all these new shops; there's a synthesizer store. Where is this coming from?”

“I like to think Portland and L.A. are not rivals; they're cousins. As cities on the West Coast, they're distinct in their own way but still culturally similar.”

“I will admit that I purposely stress myself out. But I think I like stressing myself out. There's a glamour to, like, 'I've got to get to the airport!' I just like the caricature.”

“Prince is my favorite ever. I've liked Prince since... It's been a really long time. Even in junior high. I used to only like punk for a while, and I had all these rules for what kinds of gr...”

“I was really close to being this guy who used to be in this band who is still playing and trying to get some recordings together, but I got really lucky.”

“My favorite song is 'Cybele's Reverie' by Stereolab.”

“My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese. I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at th...”

“The day of parts of the country hating each other, or rivalries like that... I feel like that's dead.”

“I travel a lot. I'll go back and forth, you know, West Coast-East Coast, but it's separated by segments. So it's not a daily thing.”

“My showbiz career started with 'SNL,' and to write an 'SNL' book... well, there are already enough of those.”

“Music documentaries are tricky because of 'Spinal Tap.' That movie has stood the test of time.”

“When people say that L.A. doesn't have a culture, I think it really does: a very old culture, and very specific. There's streets named after entertainers, and statues of entertainers, and it...”