Popular quotes about Band! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 20
So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we're kind of an international phenomenon.
Michael StipeI enjoy playing with a big band occasionally, but it's too restricting; you really don't have a chance to stretch out and do what you want to do. Getting that thing of relating to a large band is great experience; I relate much better, though, if it's a small band.
Art PepperI consider us to be one of the first Internet-based bands, especially because we basically started our entire band via the Internet. Before MySpace Music even existed, we had a band MySpace page. We were one of the first fifty bands on PureVolume(.com), and we really built everything from the Internet. That's how we started talking to record labels, that's how we booked our first tours. Without the Internet social networking, like Twitter, we definitely wouldn't be where we are today. It is a huge part of the band.
Jack BarakatThe Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.
Billy CorganWe haven't started playing it live yet but we're going to. And then 'Warpaint' is a song that's really, really close to me because it's actually - we've had that song for many years now and it's changed so many times, it's been through every reincarnation of our band with every drummer, with sometimes with me playing drums, it was when we were a three-piece, every incarnation of the band that we've had we have played that song.
Theresa WaymanThe only problem with Shearwater as a name for a band is that people sort of think that it's this amalgamated word like Pushmonkey or something. Doesn't have an actual...you know, like Clearwater or Stillwater, they don't realize that it actually is a thing. It seemed like such a beautiful word, I was so suprised that no body had named their band that.
Jonathan MeiburgI didn't decide to start to playing piano until I was almost 13 years old when my friends and I thought it would be fun to start a band. None of us actually played any instruments so the band never quite got off the ground, BUT it made me go home and ask my parents for piano lessons. That was really the beginning for me. Once I started, it was all I wanted to do.
Andrew HollanderDuane Allman was bursting with energy ... he was a force to be reckoned with. His drive and focus, as well as his intense belief in himself and our band, was incredible. He knew we were going to make it. We all knew we were a good band, but no one had that supreme confidence like he did, and it was a great thing, because his confidence and enthusiam were infectious... it says a lot that his hero was Muhammad Ali. That kind of supreme confidence that Ali had - that's where Duane was coming from
Richard BettsEven now, when I try and think of band names just randomly, I'm so thankful that 'fun.' is the name of the band. I never really think twice about it. It is so simple and so easy.
Nate RuessMysticism is concerned primarily with moving our awareness field from the beginning of the band of perception, the human band, up to the enlightened bands of perception.
Frederick LenzAs rich as you think some of us are, for every $18.99 CD you buy, the artist usually sees a toonie or so. Pay your producer out of that. Then your manager. Then split it five ways among your band mates. Now don't act surprised when you see the drummer of a platinum-selling Canadian rock band behind the drive- thru window at Tim Hortons
Steven PageOur 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 JonesYou have to figure out as a band how a band becomes a business, and then you have to keep that business mentality separate from the creative one, which is good for the songs. It's always a work in progress.
David LongstrethIn my last band, Soundgarden, I had a couple of different drummers sit in on some stuff and it was fun for me to kind of take a break and watch the band.
Matt CameronA guitar for me is pretty much strictly in the context of writing songs for my band, coming up with ideas with my band, and then being able to perform those songs as best as I can on stage - that's what the guitar for me has always been.
Scott IanI 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 WebbI wish I could tell you me and my rock band were traveling around, strung out. No, we were a family band. Straight Partridge Family.
Bruno MarsIf you are a pop band, don't say you're a metal band. Poison and Warrant were about as metal as the Backstreet Boys.
Geezer ButlerI met The Beatles while we were playing in Germany. We'd seen them in Liverpool, but they were a nothing little band then, just putting it together. In fact, they weren't really a band at all.
Ringo StarrA lot of things just got distorted, like stories about each other. After the tour we never talked. I believe a band should be a band.
Tommy BolinI asked all through third, fourth and fifth grade, when they were asking kids to be in the band, to be in the school band. But they wouldn't let me do it.
Jon GordonWhen you're a solo artist and you have a band on tour you have to pay the band some salary. You don't realise the expenses, the way they add up SO quickly. But thank god I'm not a money person. So it doesn't really bug me at all, I mean it's more comical to me.
Marnie SternThe 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 FulghumI think first huge gay following started out with our keyboard player Jesper Anderberg. When he joined the band we were still in high school, and he was two years younger than us. He has a really boyish look, so all the gay guys fell in love with him straight away. We have a couple of cute guys in the band, and we play that kind of music that will go in a club. And I was dating a girl for a while - that might have something to do with it.
Maja IvarssonIn high school no guys wanted to be in a band with me unless I was going to play bass or play grindcore or be in a scream-o band, so it was fun to finally have that experience of having my songs backed by a drummer and a bassist who were just as excited about it as I was.
Weyes BloodPapa Roach is actually a band that's great at playing arenas. Not every band is suited for that environment. But besides the huge energy you guys bring, the songs are very grand and anthemic. "Kick in the Teeth" being an example as a song that's made for huge crowd sing-alongs, not tiny little club shows.
Tony PalermoYouths write me and tell me that their band will go nowhere because of all the bad bands in the world. I tell them there has always been awful music and that no great band ever wasted any time complaining, they just got it done. Their ropey ranting is just a way to get out of the hard work of making music that will do some lasting damage.
Henry RollinsWhen I see four young kids in a band, I think, That looks really fun, no matter how shitty they are. You develop your own thing, and get excited about your band name. It's all so harmless.
Stephen MalkmusWe're not a band because we're trying to be the Mother Teresas of the music industry, out to serve everybody. We're a band first and foremost because we love playing pop music.
Alice NutterLike all bands, the first two albums are always the ones most written about, and the most covered. When a band gets to their third of fourth album, the story of the band has already been told.
Kelly JonesI like dark music and I want to wear those goth clothes in school. And I suddenly discovered this whole world of music that I totally loved. The Cure was my favorite band, even though they're not specifically a goth band. I was listening to everything from The Cure to Depeche Mode to Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus and all of that stuff. It was just this release for me. I was able to channel a lot of my loneliness and my feelings of being misunderstood, and I could go into this world where it was okay to be really eccentric.
Diane BirchI have so many indie bands on my iPod. What I don't really understand is the attitude that if a band is unknown, they're good, and if they get fans, then you move on to the next band.
Taylor SwiftAt 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 HeggI certainly didn't predict people who spent years actively disliking the band to all of a sudden like the band. That's pretty funny to me, and it makes playing live kind of interesting, 'cos we're doing lots of things that don't really have a lot to do with that record, and even presenting the songs off that record in a way that's a little more muscular and without as much of the sheen, which is what I think part of what people really liked [about Kaputt].
Dan BejarI don't know if it's true that most people don't know this, but the reason that I play music is because of my favourite band of all time - AC/DC.
Jeremy FisherWhen I went to do "Carson" that night, they wanted us to do two songs, but we were a brand new band. "Conga" hadn't even hit the top 10 yet. They go, "Do you think you could do something that people know, because we want you to do a second song, but not two originals, because we don't want to lose the audience, just in case."
Gloria EstefanThe biggest secret weapon we had in regards to really being true to this part of the world, and making sure this part of the world could see themselves in this film [Moana] in a way that felt positive and accurate, was Opetaia, my co-writer, Opetaia Foa'i, who has a great band called Te Vaka and is an amazing musical and cultural ambassador.
Lin-Manuel MirandaIt's hard to say. Whenever you play with a group of people for a long time it influences the way that you play with others. They were all very defining in their own way and all affected the band in one way or another. I don't think they are so obvious in the music. The fact is that The Lawrence Arms is the culmination of a long search of trying to find people who play well as a unit.
Chris McCaughanWe just did three albums in a row of shaking our fists in the air and yelling about George W.Bush and the government. I didn't think I was going to have to do three, but the idiot kept getting reelected. I just wanted to remind people that Ministry is actually a good rock band. We can do some party stuff, too.
Al JourgensenEvery 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 SantanaI feel like if you let someone else create your vision, then it's not true to your band. No one can ever do as good as you want, or as good as you can yourself.
James TaylorI tried to play bass in a punk band once, and it was an absolute disaster. I canโt play anything. I donโt know what it is.
Nate RuessThose who love and who have a sense of purity live in a very luminous band of awareness.
Frederick LenzI didn't write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn't. And clearly the ones who wrote music were more superior human beings in his mind. So he kind of nudged me and sort of prodded me into it. I picked it up slowly. Then I learned more about chords and harmony and I just kept adding to that. One of the great things about having good players in your band is that you just ask them questions. You can pick up some good information that way.
Bill Bruford