Popular quotes about Band! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 6
I mean, I think I liked every band I ever played in because each band was different, each band had a different concept, and each band leader was different... different personalities and musical tastes.
Buddy RichI 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 BarakatI wouldn't call Super Furry Animals a political band, but we've all grown up in politically charged households, and we have a lot of political debates within the band. Obviously we don't think exactly alike, but we agree on a lot of points, and if something pisses us off, we're usually pretty open about it and very happy to share our views with other people. But I mean, we got together as a band because of our love of music.
Gruff RhysEvery band is different just because of the different combinations of people really are super unique to every band. The way you work together and the personalities that are being brought to the table. Our band is definitely the best combination of personalities I've worked with so far.
Ali KoehlerThe act of the being in the band has very little in common with writing songs. The songs come out of it, and the band is necessary for the songs to emerge, but the band doesn't exist just so the songs can emerge.
Tim KinsellaThe band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.
James IhaI 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 would rather write songs and then practice with the band. Just the band camaraderie is awesome and then writing music and then just listening to it and saying 'Dude, we made that music!' That's really fun.
Sam McCandlessI didn't join a band. I didn't start a band. I got asked to do it. It kinda happened by accident.
Ian AstburyUltimately, we as a band just write what we write. Some of it's very serious, and even in the serious songs, there's sometimes an angle of levity. I think that's just how we communicate naturally and to shy away from that would be, first of all, boring for me, but also it wouldn't ring true to who I am or the way I relate to people or the way we relate to people as a band or the way we relate to the audience. Humor is a big part of it, but we also take our craft very seriously.
Ed RobertsonWith the exception of Megadeth, I can't imagine any band we were hesitant about touring with. I mean we liked the original Megadeth, but I can't think of any band we toured with we weren't psyched about.
Reed MullinWhen my band MU landed on Maui in 1973 we were greeted by a wonderful group of peace loving brothers & sisters who we immediately formed a bond with. We had two instant roadies, Spider & Richard, who helped with every move of our musical equipment. We settled into our house on the edge of the rainforest that eventually became a portable studio. We started rehearsing and booked the Lahaina Civic Auditorium for a full moon concert starring MU and a local band The Space Patrol.
Merrell FankhauserMy world was a community ballet school, a marching band, my two sisters and my girlfriends. I played saxophone in the band and was a bit nerdy.
Jennifer GarnerWhen 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 StelmanisMy 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 LuckerThe E Street band casts a pretty wide net. Our influences go all the way back to the early primitive garage music, and also, we've had everything in the band from jazz players to Kansas City trumpet players to Nils Lofgren, one of the great rock guitarists in the world.
Bruce SpringsteenI have some idea that if I pick on [boy band] One Direction, I'll get a ton of hate mail, because I know that when you're 15, you love a band like you will kill people. But I don't quite realize that that's true about people - adults - who read The Hunger Games.
Joel SteinA learning experience for sure. You're always learning in this business. How to work with people and how to handle your band on a professional level. How to stick up for your band and do what you think is the right thing and to know when to let things happen against what you think is best. It's challenging but it's been a good thing for us, no doubt.
Sherri DuPreeAnd 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 PillYou are always kind of suspicious that there's a better life out there for you no matter what it is - and obviously being in a band for me was always what I wanted to do, it's the only thing that I can do, it's the only thing that gets me up in the morning, but you can't help but wonder what else you'd be doing if you weren't in the band.
Ryan JarmanI 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 GunsWhen 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 MaddinSometimes I would go on Sundays and play with Doc Cheatham. I was also playing in a band of teenagers led by Don Sickler called Young Sounds, and The McDonald's Big Band led by Rich De Rosa and Justin Di Cioccio. All those guys were great educators and musicians and taught me a lot! Simultaneous to all this, another one of my musical fathers came into my life, Eddie Locke.
Jon GordonIn 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 MazzaWhen I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'
Wynton MarsalisBut I always wanted to do a theatrical stuff. But when you're in a metal band of course you're limited because five people in the band, um, you've got no keyboards... you're limited. And I wanted... to go over-the-top, you know. Literally. I wanted to make an album that people would either hate or love.
Arjen Anthony LucassenYou can kiss my Kiss-loving ass because Kiss was never a critic's band. It was a people's band.
Tom MorelloCommercial record has never interested me. It's amazing I was in a band like The Police that had such phenomenal commercial success. Part of what made The Police what it was was that we didn't all come in with obvious mainstream musical tastes. We were a rock band and somehow we had to make rock music, but it was informed by a lot of things outside of the mainstream for sure.
Andy SummersWe weren't like mates who decided to form a band. The other three met me because they were interested in being in the band that I was starting.
Billy CorganWhen 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 HaywoodIt is really refreshing to hear a big band that has the ability to execute ensemble passages with swing and precision while retaining a "small group" feel during the solo sections. This kind of "tight, loose" approach is seldom heard in big bands, whether they are professional or not. Now, all the band needs is to hit the road and take the music around the world!
John PatitucciWhen you're in a young band for the first time, geographically you're in the same place and you tend to go out and socialize. You play more shows, you spend more time together. You're a unit. As you grow older, inevitably you develop a life outside the band. I think it would be tragic if you didn't.
Robert SmithWe 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 brother was always in bands and on the road when I was a kid and he was my inspiration. He never made it with a big band, in fact he never made a record. Here he is fifty-something years old.
Jimmy ChamberlinThere'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 BiafraIt'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 McCaughanThere is always that one band that comes along when you are 14 or 15 years old that manages to hit you in just the right way and changes your whole perception of things.
Alex TurnerI've got quite a big gay following. I played a lesbian prostitute in the TV series 'Band Of Gold' but I think my following really grew when I played one in the film 'Imagine Me & You,' with Piper Perabo.
Lena HeadeyI 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 MonroeHe 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 HillBlackheart 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 JettPantera is the only band I've ever been in, and at the start we used to play covers to make a living.
Dimebag DarrellA lot of people are now criticizing Attorney General John Ashcroft for his policy on detaining what he considers suspicious people. I think he's going a little overboard. Today, he arrested the entire band Foreigner.
Jay LenoMy school music teacher, Al Bennest, introduced me to jazz by playing Louis Armstrong's record of "West End Blues" for me. I found more jazz on the radio, and began looking for records. My paper route money, and later, money I earned working after school in a print shop and a butcher shop went toward buying jazz records. I taught myself the alto saxophone and the drums in order to play in my high school dance band.
Bill CrowI 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 Fiasco