Popular quotes about Band! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 17
A good analogy is stretching a rubber band. You can stretch and stretch and even feel the tension increase in the muscles in your hands and arms as the gap from one end of the band to the other widens. But at some point you reach the limits of elasticity of the band and it snaps. The same thing happens with human systems.
John L. CastiWhen I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band - or at least in a Pixies cover band.
Kurt CobainFor starters, I should just tell you that The Band was always my favorite band from the first moment that I heard the first note of "The Weight" on WNEW radio. It was when I was eight years old and Music From Big Pink came out. They were my favorite band always. They had a profound influence on me and on my becoming a musician.
Colin LindenI was in bands as a singer-guitarist-songwriter until 1980-81. So, there's a bunch of stuff. A lot of the stuff is hard to come by-stuff by the Special Interest Group and the Zobo Funn Band. The Zobo Funn Band was a big Northeast cult band. We had about a billion skirmishes with the big rock industry.
David TornKurt Cobain was Nirvana. He named the band, hired its members, played guitar, wrote the songs, fronted the band onstage and in interviews, and took responsibility for the band's business decisions.
Courtney LoveWe went from being a band that was recording songs in my bandmate's bedroom to a band that's doing extensive touring and had a record on the Billboard charts and everything happened insanely fast, but it's not something that I sought out. It just happened.
Bethany CosentinoMy older brother was the guitar player in the neighborhood band. My parents were the cool ones that had the basement for rehearsal. Rather than hang with my peers after school, I wanted to just listen to the band. More than that, I wanted to play.
Jill SobuleI didn't join a band. I didn't start a band. I got asked to do it. It kinda happened by accident.
Ian AstburyI mean I like pop music, and I like heavy music and, stuff that I like... the band I've signed on to our label right now; they're called The Sounds. They're kind of like a new-wave pop band.
James IhaWhen I go on and listen to the stuff on the websites, I can't tell, it all sounds like the same band, like they should all be in one band together.
Marnie SternMy first big break was with the Ted Fio Rito band. Fio Rito had a bunch of record hits in the 1930s and did a lot of radio work back then. When he came to my home town in early 1942, I sat in with the band. Ted liked me and offered me a job.
Louie BellsonOur band Stereophonics never wanted to release a couple records and be the biggest band in the world for 10 minutes. We always wanted to stand the test of time, and make great music that people would want to listen to and that music lasts. We'd looked up to artists and bands that had big back catalogues.
Kelly JonesFor me personally, and as a band, there are a lot of challenges. Being in a band is like war, it's a battle - to focus, to really put together something that's formidable and then keeping everything together.
Erik RutanI think a band - even a band that's been around as long as the Rolling Stones - I think that's still the formula. You know you're gonna get those songs, and you don't mind sitting through the ones that you maybe don't know very well because you know they're not gonna let you down - they're not gonna mess with you. And I kind of feel the same way about the way I structure my shows.
DJ ShadowYou know somethin', man? Some day I'm gonna be walkin' up the street one way and you're gonna be comin' down the other way, and we're gonna pass each other and I'm gonna say 'Hello, best white band in the world' and you're gonna say 'Hello, best colored band in the world.
Chick WebbA band is a great way to destroy a friendship, and a tour's a great way to destroy a band.
Julian CasablancasI think the Internet really sussed things into perspective. Because twelve years ago, I could spend my days on writing and running my band and touring and making posters and practicing with my band and working on my vocals, but I didn't spend a large pie chart of my time sifting through criticism as well, and nowadays I do, and all female artists do, because to be able to promote your work, you need to live in those spaces.
Amanda PalmerIf 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 MorrisonAnd then we came here for three weeks of band rehearsal with [music consultant/member of the band "Sloan"] Chris Murphy. And I grew up in Toronto during Sloan's heyday, so like I was like "Oh my god!" And so that was pretty cool.
Alison PillAll your travelling is together, you eat together, you're on stage as a band together, when you get to the sound-check the band and the crew are all together.
Joan ArmatradingImagine someone so infatuated by a band that they have every different pressing of every album the band made. Most of the time, the only difference in the album is the matrix number or a different 'made in' notation on the back cover or label. This is enough to make some people extremely excited. Actually, much more than excited.
Henry RollinsWe still talk about [school band]. Almost 40 years later. It's like people are talking about, "Man we need to have a morning band reunion".
Jon GordonPeople don't seem to care about convictions any more. When I was a teenager, the deal was that, y'know, you had a band that you were really loyal towards, almost to a fault, and you stayed really loyal to that band. That was the whole thing, that was such a big deal.
Marnie SternWhen I joined the band I didn't know any of the tunes, and when I left the band I didn't know any of the tunes!
Keith JarrettI moved to Manchester to join a band and ended up getting into acting, and I moved back to London to become an actor and ended up joining a band.
Jim SturgessI work with this wonderful five-piece band, The Tony Guerrero Quintet, along with Kate Flannery, who was Meredith the Drunk in The Office, and Tim Davis, who was the vocal arranger on Glee. The three of us sing, and the band is amazing. We've been working together for about two years. So, we decided to do a Christmas album in July.
Jane LynchLuckily for me, when I was growing up in high school, I had a band, and I was a singer in the band. I'm less of a legit Broadway singer than I am a pop-rock singer.
Stark SandsAt least here in Stockholm if you go out to any of our 4 metal clubs and talk to ten guys you can be sure nine of them play in a band! The bad thing is there is no underground movement here anymore. Going to a show with local band's ten years ago would mean at least 300 people, now you can be lucky if 50 shows up!
Johan HeggWith Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.
Carrie BrownsteinThere's sort of an open offer to work with a guy in Los Angeles who does big band and orchestra arrangements who was at least an acquaintance to Les Baxter before he passed away.
Jello BiafraBeing in Nirvana was amazing an experience that will never happen again for me. And I look on them as some of the best and worst times of my life. But we're in this band, the Foo Fighters, making music for the love of music. We all came from bands that had disbanded, and we were drawn to each other because we missed playing - we missed getting in the van, loading our equipment, and watching it break down in the middle of a show. And that feeling hasn't gone away. There's nothing I'd rather do than make music. It's the love of my life.
Dave GrohlThere 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 PageI've always thought, "I could probably write one of these country songs and send them to these places and make up this fake country band. Wouldn't it be awesome to have a completely parallel career and have nobody know about it?" I think I could get away with it. I'd be the guy from Oklahoma with country cred.
Josh JonesBlackheart Records being 25 years old represents staying power and the fact that we weren't able to get a record out through conventional means, so we had to create this record company to put out our records if we wanted to be a band that had records to give out to their fans.
Joan JettEmma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses play...Ghosts dare not enter here.
Laurie Halse AndersonThe Beatles tried to do some tours and found it to be completely pointless and became a non-touring band after that, and with very good reason.
Robbie RobertsonBeing on the road is like a campout. I'm the only girl. The guys in my band are like my big brothers. It's definitely an adventure, but it can be a nomadic lifestyle.
Kate VoegeleThose who love and who have a sense of purity live in a very luminous band of awareness.
Frederick LenzI would love to have the biggest band that I can have. I'd love to put on a massive show and just give people their money's worth, then just come away from it thinking, 'That was a good show', because it's kind of disappointing sometimes when you go and see someone and you can see they're not that bothered.
Katy BSometimes I'll go out into the crowd and keep singing, but I'll get maybe seven rows out and I'm out of synch, I'm a couple seconds behind the band and then it becomes chaos.
Rob ZombieYears ago when I was in a cover band and we were playing dances, that was quite a different thing. You were there as part of an event. When you're a songwriter, you are the event. So it's a little bit of a different focus.
Andy WilkinsonI always tell girls who say they want to start a band but don't have any talent, well, neither do I. I mean, I can carry a tune, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out. You don't have to have magic unicorn powers. You work at it, and you get better. It's like anything- You sit there and do it every day, and eventually you get good at it.
Kathleen HannaOne of the things I've always personally tried to stress with this band was to have some kind of visual aspect and to be consistent with it - like, not to change.
Peter SteeleThe first music I ever got into was the '80s alternative bands that my brother listened to, like The Cure and The Smiths and R.E.M. and Fugazi. I can remember specifically saying The Cure was my favorite band back in second grade.
Conor OberstI don't need to have my convictions confirmed by a show of numbers. However, being among people in front of a band leads me to believe that all is not lost, that humans, now and then, can communicate on a higher level than the political and the practical.
Henry RollinsIt is not very practical in todayโs world when you tour all over the place having a big band.
Andy SummersIt's how I learned to play guitar - sitting with Led Zeppelin and Cheap Trick records, backing the needle up and learning how to play along. When the band started, by doing something that was very obvious to us and sort of traditional, it set us apart at the time from what was happening musically.
Tad Kubler