Popular quotes about Band! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 40
When we opened Babbo, we were an indie band. Now we're kinda Apple. We have 19 restaurants and 2,800 employees, we are no longer perceived as the indie band although we think of ourselves as the indie band, and we operate our restaurants as individual indie bands.
Mario BataliA lot of the music is the kind of thing I grew up with, listening to it with my parents. So there was a band in London called the BBC Big Band, and I sang with them. And I had never done a big band before, and it was just so fantastic and I had such a good time...so that's how it all came about
Frances RuffelleThe Beatles weren't like any other band. Everybody in the band sang, which is why you knew everybody in the band.
Gene SimmonsThe Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.
Billy CorganThe 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 think that everybody that's coming out to Warped Tour, when they come to see the show, they're always like; let's go see that band that band that band and... that girl. I think that I tend to be that girl sometimes and I think that it's cool that I get to hang out with this Summer camp of smelly boys.
Katy PerryI think that was going on with bands like The Strokes was that the idea of the band, a real band, was making a comeback. My brother in law is an example- before he was listening to some country music, even some of that awful nu-metal stuff , but there weren't many options really.
James MercerI saw the Ramones, early on at a country-rock palace in Denver. They were opening for some record-company band, so the local music establishment, and I emphasize the word "establishment," was there in force, and the handful of us who knew the Ramones were up in front. And half the fun was, you know, not only were the Ramones the most powerful band I had ever seen at that point, but they made it look so simple - that anyone could do it, hell, even I could do it. This is what I should be doing.
Jello BiafraI was in one bar band from 1965 to '69, then I was in another one from 1970 to '79 - a 9-year bar band!
Eric CarrMichael Sunday and I are the original members of the band. We first did it just for charities and benefit concerts. It was very ad-hoc, and before we knew it, we were really a band. We went through several drummers and guitarists before we were happy with the line up.
Peter TorkThe whole punk scene is, of course, responsible for the Go-Go's ever getting created. Because before punk rock happened, you couldn't start a band if you didn't know how to play an instrument. But when punk happened it was like, 'Oh, it doesn't matter if you can play or not. Go ahead, make a band.' And that's exactly what the Go-Go's did.
Jane WiedlinI'm not going to say I'll never rock with a band, because I'm too much of a fan of the aesthetic of a great band. But a girl group? Not again.
Dawn AngeliqueThat just felt like the most natural name out of all of the names. Everything else just felt so contrived. Even 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 RuessComposing is just another exciting thing. It's as exciting as being in a band. It's kind of like joining a new band for three months.
James IhaMy brother was in high school and he had a garage band going, but no one would sing. They were covering a Hatebreed song at the time and I knew the words for it. My brother knew I knew the words, so he came inside the house and he's like 'Hey Mitch, come out here and sing'. I did it and after that I started a band with my older brother. That's how I got started.
Mitch LuckerYou 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 LongstrethI formed a band called Atomic Rooster. The Atomic Rooster was sort of an underground cult band, sort of psychedelic. We did very well.
Carl PalmerI 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 ArmisenI think that Phish has been a band, we've all had- I've had a great life growing up and everybody in my band's had a really good life, none of us have got anything to complain about at all.
Jon FishmanI 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 PalmerWhen 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 was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn't making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don't understand the part of money in running a band.
Artie ShawThe chances of a reunion now are less likely. I was thinking of having a 40th anniversary of the band, but now they are really another band, so it's all a bit weird.
Alvin LeeA band isn't a band unless they're playing together. Otherwise it's just five guys that are living off their royalty checks.
Joe PerryOur band tries and be as personable with fans as possible because up until the last two months it's been very bearable and easy to get to know fans on first name basis, especially the fans who come to multiple shows. Now its getting a little bit harder with new people and it's a little overwhelming so we're trying to strike the balance of being a very public band that establishes a relationship with the audience.
Sameer GadhiaThe shows are so different from each other, depending on whether I play with my band, Nine Stories, other musicians, an orchestra, only one or two members of my band.
Lisa LoebI did exactly what I wanted to do. It was always my intention to put a band together and be a band and not be about the solo pop guy. That was never me. All of the musicians that made me do what I wanted to do were bands. I didn't see it any other way.
Chris DaughtryI 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 GoldsmithI knew I wanted to be an actor for a long time, but I was based out of Chicago and then I went to New York and I did 'The Upright Citizens Brigade' out there. I had a two-man show with a guy named Oliver Ralli who's now in the band Pass Kontrol, which is a big band out of New York.
Jake M. JohnsonYou 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 AllmanWhen 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 MalkmusWhen you're in a band that's so big when you're young, you kind of lose your identity a little bit. You just become part of the band. I just needed to get away from it.
Roger Meddows TaylorAny time somebody is into your band that's a good thing. And if they're in a really cool, really popular band, that's a better thing.
James HetfieldAs I said to Ringo, I was in a successful Rock N Roll band. He was in a band that changed the world. That's the difference.
Greg LakeLuckily 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 SandsI 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 BejarWhen that band started out, I was 18 years old. So that was my reality all the way up until I quit the band. And even then, you know, Guns N' Roses has a nasty way of sticking around.
SlashAnother 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 RedmanThere'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 BiafraThe 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 MirandaI am Evanescence. I am the only original member. I have basically hired the band. Evanescence has become me. It is mine and it's exactly how I want it to be.
Amy LeeBeing 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 GrohlIt'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 McCaughan