Popular quotes about Band! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.
Chad SmithIt's great when a huge amount of money goes from a dumb corporation into the hands of an awesome band with brilliant ideas who can use it to keep being a band for a year, as opposed to a band that's already huge taking one of those things - that's more pathetic.
Alex ScallyEvery good band in the world was a cover band first. The Beatles were and the Stones were. Everybody was a cover band.
Alice CooperI had a ten-piece band when I was 21 years old, the Bruce Springsteen Band. This is just a slightly expanded version of a band I had before I ever signed a record contract. We had singers and horns.
Bruce SpringsteenAll those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.
Conor OberstThe most inspiring drummer for me is Stewart Copeland from The Police. The Police are the first band I can remember really liking, and Copeland is a guy who was playing in sort of a rock band, or a rock-pop band, but he didn't want to do the traditional kind of rock drumbeat. He was doing all these kind of reggae rhythms, and the reggae style is almost an exact opposite of the rock mold of drumming.
Panda BearI'm seeing myself as an outsider a little bit - definitely when I started the band. I knew what band's name meant and nobody else really did, so I'd be on stage every night and say, "Hello, we're Art Brut" - basically saying that we were rejects. But I mean, I didn't really sing, it did feel a bit like we were outsiders. It was a bit tongue-in-cheek when I first named the band that, but then we slowly turned into that - like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Eddie ArgosAnything was better than going to work. All those early tours before we made any money were more like vacations. I don't think it was until 2001 that we pulled our heads out of the sand and were like, "What are we doing?" I don't think Chris realized he was in a band until 2001. He all of a sudden woke up one day and realized he was in a band. He thought he was just recording my solo project. Three albums later, we're in Baltimore trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.
Ben GibbardWhatever our personal differences are, there are no bigger fans of this band than the people who are in this band.
Alex Van HalenWhen we started the band, I was really like, "We just want to make a lot of records" - not quite unlike Guided By Voices' schedule. I've always thought that our live thing is what we do best, and having a really robust, big catalog makes for the most interesting live band - especially with people, at this point, traveling to see us night after night. For us to have almost 100 songs to pull from is a really cool thing. The sets can be different. They can be invigorating on an intellectual level. I definitely hope to continue to release records at an accelerated pace.
Craig FinnMy world was a community ballet school, a marching band, my two sisters and my girlfriends. I played saxophone in the band and was a bit nerdy.
Jennifer GarnerThis is going to sound really corny, but it's the way I feel: Musicians have been around for a really long time. It's a really, really old job. When you look at the way that a small band toured back in the '50s, it's similar to the way that a small band tours now. It's been this long tradition, and when you meet somebody who has been doing this for a really long time, you have to have tremendous respect for them.
Will SheffWith rock music, it usually revolves around the band. You go in as a band and probably take about a year to record an album. But for a hip-hop song, you can create a track and an idea with verses and choruses in a day, and get three different people on it. It seems like you're able to do more with hip-hop.
Travis BarkerIf a band isn't coming up with two to four of those when they pick up their instruments, then they have problems - even if none of them turn into a song. If that's not happening in a band, it's time for therapy or breaking up.
Travis MorrisonWhen Adam's House Cat broke up in 1991, which was Cooley and my band for six years, I put my entire life, heart, and soul into that thing. I mean everything. I ended up getting divorced over it, and then the band broke up and I was left with nothing. I had nothing to show for six years of my life except for a finished record that still hasn't come out. And I went through a pretty deep, dark, two-year depression after that, [which] probably resulted in some of the earlier songs that became Drive-By Trucker songs, for that matter.
Patterson HoodWe care about equality and democracy within the band and outside the band. For us life is about cooperation and solidarity, not about egotism, greed, or competition. This means that we prefer to work with people and bands that have a similar sort of mentality and attitude.
G.W. SokI hope to find the perfect band as well, I really do, and I'm working very hard to find that band.
Vinnie VincentI saw an article where the manager of the Pussycat Dolls, which is kind of this like striptease band, girl band, said, oh well, the girls are totally third-wave feminist. This is what third-wave feminism is about. Like you don't get to use that word. You don't get to say that something is feminist as a way to sell back sexism to women, as a way to further consumerist ideas.
Jessica ValentiThe Indian danced on alone. The crowd clapped up the beat. The Indian danced with a chair. The crowd went crazy. The band faded. The crowd cheered. The Indian held up his hands for silence as if to make a speech. Looking at the band and then the crowd, the Indian said, "Well, what're you waiting for? Let's DANCE.
Robert FulghumWhen I was a teenager in a band playing, everything was great. I still don't feel any different. I still wake up with the same love and passion as when I did this with the band. Because my life in music has let me live the kind of life that I've loved, and I've been able to share it with others and take care of the people I love.
Frank WildhornYou take all the time to write a song: you have to let it ooze on out by its natural self and that is pretty time consuming. Then you teach it to the band so everybody gets all the parts. Then you rehearse it and road test it, and all that. Then you get to the studio and there is a new guy in the band who calls himself the producer, right? Huh. He either makes it or breaks it usually before nightfall.
Gregg AllmanDown is an incredibly important band to me. And there's one other project that may be a little tough for people to understand - it's not sonically heavy, but subject-wise it's absolutely heavy. It's a band that I've been in for many, many yearsm and I've just been waiting for the right itme, and boy, it sure is the right time. So, yeah, you will hear music from Philip Anselmo again, and it ain't gonna be nothing nice.
Phil AnselmoA song is what you fall in love with first, but then I think a band's ideals and a band's sense of fashion and a sense of how they treat people is what you fall in love with afterwards.
James TaylorOnce again, in the fine tradition of North Texas Lab Bands, this is truly a superb band. Under the artful leadership of Neil Slater, these great musicians have managed to combine small group "openness" with the swinging precision of a classic big band. Very enjoyable!
Michael BreckerMy dream right now is - and I don't know how to do it, and I don't know if it will work exactly - but just this sort of vague aspiration to start some kind of website where people send in their stories or poems, and me or perhaps some other people turn that into music. And then by the end of the year we make a record and actually put it out. Like a band, but the band is actually a combination of the musician and the fan. I think that's a very 21st-century way of doing it.
Eef BarzelayA lot of people change their band names because they're looking for a change of atmosphere.
Justin VernonI used to split my time between writing, music and painting. I would work on a book and then abandon it, start a band, do an album, quit music, then do a gallery show. Eventually I decided to give writing a serious shot.
Isaac MarionI grew up with the Beatles and they are still to this day my top band played in my iTunes.
Greg LaswellAnother factor is that in terms of the original compositions, this is our strongest year yet. Everyone wrote a fantastic piece and everyone really had a greater sense of how to write for this band -- not only for this particular instrumentation, but for these particular players. Each year, the reality is getting closer to the ideal of a collective.
Joshua RedmanI feel like there's this weird thing that as a feminist band you get put in this role as ambassadors.
Kathleen HannaThere will be a Led Zeppelin as long as there's a Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. This isn't a nostalgia band playing the hits forever. If anything ever happened and somebody left - which I really can't see happening - I don't think we'd bother to carry on. The magic for me is as it is now.
Jimmy PageThe Republican Party had a big day in yesterday's midterm elections and now controls the House and Senate. And don't ask me how this happened, but the Republican Party also gained control of three seats in our show's band.
Conan O'BrienI think of rock 'n' roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop.
Bob DylanNikki lives around the corner from me and I see him all the time. We talk a lot, and of course we're still friends. That was our baby, Motley Crue, we put that band together.
Tommy LeeEvery day you wake up is an opportunity to go beyond, and that 's why I let my band go right now. For the first time in my life I'm just roaming around, vagabonding.
Carlos SantanaThere was a time in our very recent history when it was โinterestingโ to be a Star Wars fan. It was sort of like admitting you masturbate twice a day or that your favorite band was They Might Be Giants. Star Wars was something everyone of a certain age secretly loved but never openly recognized
Chuck KlostermanThe great thing about rock-n-roll is you realize the top of the mountain is big enough for more than one band.
Paul StanleyCaptain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, And the youth, mistook by me, Pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!
William ShakespeareI haven't had that many people onstage for a while, and I'm looking forward to that. They're all such creative musicians in their own right. They're all complete individuals. They're not just a pick-up band. They all have their own thing going on.
Andrew BirdYes, my mother was a singer, and my father played piano and keyboards. They were in a band together, though they also had regular jobs because they had kids and stuff like that.
Caroline CorrI fireballed him as he was seeking out treasure after we wiped out a band of orcs, playing rock-paper-scissors with each orc to determine who would prevail in combat. This is a lot more exciting than it sounds. It's quite civilized, and a little weird. You go running after someone through the woods, catch up with him, bare your teeth, and sit down to play a little roshambo.
Cory DoctorowScientific thought - indeed, any mode of thought, whether it be religious or philosophical or anything else - is just like the fashions that we wear - only much longer lived. It's a little like a boy band.
Jasper FfordeThat's what you join a band for, is to make music. Not to sit around and have five years off. We're not getting any younger.
Liam GallagherPerforming alone - it's a very solitary experience. When you're in a band, when something amazing happens on stage you can look at each other, "Yeah! we're so locked in." Or if something goes wrong, you can look at each other and shrug and say, "Oops." If you're doing it by yourself, you reflect on it in a completely different way.
Aoife O'Donovan