Popular quotes about Band! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 53
My dad was all about music. He was a musician, leading a band when I was born. His band was active all through the 40s. He'd started it in the late 20s and 30s. According to the scrapbook, his band was doing quite well around the Boston area. During the Depression they were on radio. It was a jazz-oriented band. He was a trumpet player, and he wrote and arranged for the band. He taught me how to play the piano and read music, and taught me what he knew of standard tunes and so forth. It was a fantastic way to come up in music.
Chick CoreaHopefully people can look at our band and see that we're a heavy rock band. We're definitely not a metal band, but we're a band that focuses on meaningful lyrics and melody.
Adam RichIf you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!
Duke EllingtonI said that the only way I could have a band that would work in the format of my show is if the band were crap. So if I have a band they'd have to really suck.
Craig FergusonMost 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 BlackmoreI 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 Beatles weren't like any other band. Everybody in the band sang, which is why you knew everybody in the band.
Gene SimmonsI think that every band is different, and in fact that's one of the biggest problems with the old-school music industry is that... one band would be successful according to a certain approach, and then every other band in the label gets sent down the same tube.
Emily HainesI'm in a funny position: I've been in one band in my life and that was with my brother. As incredible as that has been, I feel like I'm missing out a little bit on being in a real rock band - or how I imagine being in a real rock band to be. It's like being in a street gang: you all wear the same leather jacket or whatever.
Eleanor FriedbergerI'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 ArgosI 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 MercerMichael 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 TorkI think I'm just trying to show a more mature side of the band and I think we've really come into the sound of our band. With every album we've grown, but I think this is just a really good picture of where we are right now and how we feel our music represents us. Under the thumb of other record companies we haven't had as much creative control and I think with this record we really did our own thing.
Jason C. MillerI was a huge fan of this band called Sparks. It was a pretty good inauguration to music since their music is quite complex. They were a little glammy, and me - being a kid and not really understanding the complexity of grown-up lyrics - I took the best out of it. But at the same time, it was mysterious enough and too far away from me for me to really be able to reach it. But they were my first love affair in the world of music. I loved that band.
Johan RenckDuane 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 BettsMy 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 BellsonWhen 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 StelmanisOur 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 JonesWhat we've noticed is that people latch onto our music, and are very, very supportive of it, even almost defensive about it. Quite fanatical, some fans, aren't they? Just like they are in England, once they get a hold of "their" band, they don't want their band to get too big anyways.
Jez WilliamsIf 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 MorrisonI don't really care about labels that much. I wouldn't really call our music retro. There are influences of things from the past, which there is in everything. I think we're quite a modern band, actually. We don't record with old equipment. We use computers and programmed drums. We don't use any guitar amplifiers. We're very much a modern band in the sense that we love computers and what they can do to music. I guess we're just good at a different sound.
Sune Rose WagnerIt's kind of dumb; everybody should be able to listen to the kind of music they want and just because you're a fan of a band for a longer period of time doesn't mean you have a greater stake of claim to the band or the music.
Ray ToroWhen I started making films I just decided "I'm the filmmaking equivalent of a garage band and I'll just make my garage band movies." But even the same musicians from garage bands would go to my movies and you could tell what they liked from the way that they dressed and they would be the first ones to walk out.
Guy MaddinI think women should band together to get us more respect in all the businesses that we're in because, you know, if we turn 40, we're nothing and nobody. We all should band together and just say we're not gonna go down like that.
Mary J. BligeWe 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. SokIn college, unable to be "special" - or in demand - as a girl, I made myself useful, even essential, in my microcosm - as a writer and photographer for the band, particularly for the band director. My "specialness" was to produce something of value, not to look like something (with that different kind of "value"), so I was still fundamentally invisible, but had a significant purpose.
Cris MazzaI 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 ValentiI look upon The Animals, they were a great band initially, we left our mark, but thing was it was a band that couldn't live up to its name so I soldiered on. On one level, it was devastating for a while. On another level, maybe I should thank them for helping me make my own way in my own career.
Eric BurdonPapa 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 PalermoAt the time of starting this band I was listening to tons of death metal. However, the bands that made me want to be in a band to begin with were groups like Korn, Deftones, Slayer, Sepultura... everything that my dad would buy and bring home to me and my brother saying 'Hey, listen to this'.
Mitch LuckerKiss is the number-one American band in gold-record sales. In the world, only the Beatles and the Stones are ahead of us. Every other band should be wiping my ass. The line forms over there to the left.
Gene Simmons"Anybody have money?" Frank checked his pockets. "Three denarii from Camp Jupiter. Five dollars Canadian." Hedge patted his gym shorts and pulled out what he found. "Three quarters, two dimes, a rubber band and - score! A piece of celery." He started munching on the celery, eyeing the change and the rubber band like they might be next.
Rick RiordanWhen I reissue these Minimal Wave Record songs, I also re-master them. With Oppenheimer Analysis, it turned out that the band still had the master tapes. So, Martin Lloyd from the band and I baked the tapes to restore the quality.
Veronica VasickaNow, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones
Gerry MulliganWe started the band with a work ethic of 'it's us against the world' and that is something that our fans aligned with, too. Together, we speak a common language. I think that motto has helped us keep the creative force alive all these years while the fans have kept the fire burning for us to always be excited to create new music for them. Without the fans, we are a band without a home.
David EllefsonMy 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 VernonWithin the human frequency of perception, what you see is what you get. I would classify the bottom of the band as severe unhappiness, depression and alimentation.
Frederick LenzHe had found the band of jackals he needed. But as Jack McCall rode through the center of town, he experienced the terrifying certainty that a man faces when he's about to make his own name famous. He lacked both a hero's calm and a coward's resolve to survive at any price.
Walter HillI think of rock 'n' roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop.
Bob DylanEvery 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 Taylor