Popular quotes about Band! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 24
Most guitar players get a name because the band that they're in has become popular. That doesn't mean that they're particularly good, whereas conversely, you've got people like Albert Lee, an incredible player, one of my favourites who's not in a famous band, so he doesn't get into the popularity polls. I have to laugh at some of the people that do get into the popularity polls - some of them are so bad, but they're in a band that's at the top of the hit parade. I think people mix that up.
Ritchie BlackmoreMy first job was in a Bohemian polka band, the Rejcek family polka band in Abbott. The old man in the band had another blacksmith shop in Abbott, but he liked me. All he had was horns and drums, and I was set up over there with my little guitar with no amps or nothing. I would play as loud as I wanted to, and nobody could hear me.
Willie NelsonThe Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.
Billy CorganI didn't join a band. I didn't start a band. I got asked to do it. It kinda happened by accident.
Ian AstburyActing had always been the social scene I'd fallen into. It was sort of a merry band of band geeks and theater nerds.
Adam BaldwinWhen I was growing up, until I was 18 or 19, I was totally invested in the classical music world. I had no concept of anything else. The closest thing to a cool band I listened to was Radiohead. Radiohead were the only band I liked in high school. I was just obsessed with classical music, opera, Claude Debussy, and that kind of stuff.
Katie StelmanisI've always seen My Chemical Romance as the band that would have represented who me and my friends were in high school, and the band that we didn't have to represent us - the kids that wore black - back then.
Gerard WayThe first time The Runaways played in Britain, Joan Jett wore my bullet belt onstage. The Runaways were really the first all-girl band to really strut their stuff and say, "F**k you." "Cherry Bomb" was the best song for a girl band to sing. It was just outrageous at the time. There were American families sitting on the sofa watching television going, "F**k me." It was great fun.
Lemmy KilmisterThis 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 SheffThere was a band very early on in our class, and I played in that band and as a teenager, I continued. It was more from my own relationship with the instruments at this time, figuring out the instrument and then having to learn different pieces that I really got into music. I really discovered the almost transcending power of music. And I think that is why I am so into it.
Agnes ObelI spent most of my 20s playing music. I was in a band and we worked really hard and did not get very far. 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. That's never lost in me, that I went through Saturday Night Live.
Fred ArmisenYou either swing a band or don't swing a band and that's what's lacking today.. There aren't any guys who get back there and play with any kind of guts.
Buddy RichThe thing about Matt Cameron is he has made us 1000 times a better band than we've ever been. He's such a freight train on drums and such a cool individual as a man that it makes us better as a band, and we are now complete with him.
Mike McCreadyIf 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 ButlerWhen 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 HoodI like what's going on in Finland, with the rebirth of Beherit. I also like a band called Oranssi Pazuzu and a band called Spiderpact. There's a great scene there where they don't really care what's going on elsewhere and create music in their own vacuum.
Mat McNerneyI really enjoy touring period! I had another band called Killing Machine, we went out on tour which was only fifteen shows & we went out in a really old motor home. That had to be the most fun. I didn't have to do radio at nine in the morning everyday. It was me & a bunch of friends. The singer was my tattoo artist. My girlfriend would fly in & we would sleep in a hammock above the bed the band were sleeping in [laughs]. I like that stuff that's really fun, I like the camping experience.
Tracii GunsA weird thing about Gossip that I've always said: "If I weren't in this band, I would never listen to it." But I would go see it. It's a band you would go see that you don't necessarily listen to.
Beth DittoI 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 GordonSometimes the problem is not the people in the band, but the people around the band.
Roger Meddows TaylorThe reason I don't play any of the old songs is because I really honor my old band, and I think that those songs are best served within the context of that band.
Billy CorganI 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 IvarssonI've never treated anyone in my band like they're not on the same level as me. I'm not that kind of person. In the past, I have disrespected people in my band and that was my weakness. I think some people have a hard time understanding how I think.
Marilyn MansonI was 21, and I was like, "Man, am I really gonna start over and try this whole thing over again? Do I want to start over and be in a rock band again and try to act like a 17-year-old for as long as I can?" Because that was what I was doing with Simon Dawes band. I decided that if I was going to go on playing music, I was going to try and work on it. So I got into Leonard Cohen and Will Oldham, guys that really inspired me not only as songwriters but also through their music as people, and that's kind of what the shift was for me.
Taylor GoldsmithA 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 TaylorYou can kiss my Kiss-loving ass because Kiss was never a critic's band. It was a people's band.
Tom MorelloFlorida is such an unlikely place for a band, unless you're an emo or hardcore band. In terms of the touring route, or even the way the geography works in terms of bands and communities, Florida's always been this appendage that you either cut it off and dismiss it, or you somehow include it in your scope.
Carrie BrownsteinWhen you're looking for a band name, I know it sounds weird, but everything you look at, everything you observe and read, you kind of think, 'Man, maybe that could be our band name.
Dave HaywoodI wanted to be in a band that gave bang for the buck. I wanted to be in the band who didn't look like a bunch of guys who, you know, should be in a library studying for their finals.
Gene SimmonsThe guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the army against which it fights simply because it is inferior in fire power.
Che GuevaraThere's nothing that compares to being in a band with your best friends. We're so comfortable together, we understand each other. It feels, like, normal. Whereas solo period felt like I was trying to be something, and play a role, and pretend.
Gwen StefaniOnce I had the band, Jason [Moran] and John [Patitucci] and Eric [Harland] - it's very exciting to have that trio of just world-class guys - I already knew it was going to be fantastic. I didn't really tell them anything about it. They didn't know what they were going to play beforehand.
Jose JamesI have been involved in music since 1972 when I started managing two artists from The Jimi Hendrix Band. My family has been involved in music for years, so it's kind of in my blood. I just wish I could sing!
Earl MonroeYes, I always say that were a National League band. What I mean is, if you play an instrument, you have to sing. So I always call our drummer up. Even the drummer has to take a turn on the microphone.
Emmylou HarrisI got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.
Quincy JonesPeople want you to produce records. They don't care what it took to make it. When a band is out doing concerts, the fans don't want to know about equipment difficulties. They want their hour-and-a-half release, and that's it.
SlashIt wasn't until The Sixth Sense that people started saying, wow, man, you're an actor. People didn't think of me as the guy in a band anymore.
Donnie WahlbergOne day when I was like 9, I heard the Beatles on the radio, and I asked my dad who they were. He told me they were the best band in the world, and I became obsessed. He started giving me their albums in sequential order, and I listened to them - and only them - until I was probably in high school.
Lukas HaasI love jazz. So to me, there are two main types of jazz. There's dancing jazz, and then there's listening jazz. Listening jazz is like Thelonius Monk or John Coltrane, where it's a listening experience. So that's what I like; I like to make stuff that you listen to. It's not really meant to get you up; it's meant to get your mind focused. That's why you sit and listen to jazz. You dance to big band or whatever, but for the most part, you sit and listen to jazz. I think it comes from that aesthetic, trying to take that jazz listening experience and put it on hip-hop.
Lupe FiascoBecause we take these huge long breaks, and then I just kind go, "Okay, fine, this is the way that I've chosen to live my life, and if the band now fades into obscurity, so be it, that's my decision." But then we come back and it's still as big as ever, or bigger. It's always been a surprise to me, that it worked out that way.
Milo AukermanI'm spoiled - in all ways. I've been in a rock 'n' roll band since I was 13, and we had incredible success. When it ended, it had been so good that I just looked at it as time to try something different.
Peter NooneThe Beatles had just come out, and everybody had a band. It was incredible competition out there.
Gregg AllmanFrom this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he neโer so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accursโd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispinโs day.
William ShakespeareIf you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place.
Murray RothbardTo actually get together and make a band record feels like a bit of a big deal, and that can be quite daunting when you're musicians.
Tracey ThornPerforming 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