Popular quotes about Bands! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 9
I think there are plenty of good bands out there, but the great bands aren't affected by what's going on around them, trends and all that and competing with other bands and wanting to be the biggest, we find that happens a lot. Bands look at other bands and think: that's what I want, you know? I think that remaining.
Ryan JarmanThe only thing I say I consciously do is I definitely make an effort to work on different styles of music: not working on too many post-rock bands, or too many heavy bands, or too many folk bands, or just whatever. I have no desire to be known as somebody that just works on a single style of music and would rather avoid it, actually.
John CongletonI listen to all kinds of bands. I like rock music, like, male rock bands. I'm more into that instead of female singers. I like Nirvana, Green Day, System Of A Down. I also like punk rock, and I love bands like Coldplay.
Avril LavigneI hated it so much as a child. I just didn't like it when punk bands went metal, it really bothered me. It was happening left and right in the 1980s. It started I think with D.C. bands - G.I., Soul Side, they went metal. Right at that time, R.E.M. was coming out, these more kinda feminine bands, and I was more drawn to that than to go metal. And you remember MTV, with the bad metal. But even Metallica, it just wasn't my direction.
Stephen MalkmusI've always been a fan of the band setting. I've always been a believer in bands, and I've always been in bands. That's where my comfort zone is. So to stand outside of that, that was never my intention or goal. I never had the dream of, 'I'm gonna go into all these bands as a spring board for my solo work.' But life takes you on different journeys sometimes. I ended up playing a bunch of songs and some of them I really liked.
Frank IeroThe tools are evolving, and people's interests are evolving as well. So, suddenly people like to hear bands, people like Devendra Banhart or the xx, bands that make a kind of virtue of sloppiness. That isn't what they would describe what they're doing, but the fact is they make a virtue of the sort of hand-made nature of what they're doing.
Brian EnoGuy Picciotto had a really sound point: Live albums basically have bands playing songs that are available on studio records, and what example can you think of where the live album is better? What are the great live albums? I have live albums of bands, but I wouldn't listen to them for the most part. So we thought, instead of spending energy trying to puzzle out how to create a live record, let's just write another studio record.
Ian MacKayeI followed most of the 80's bands into the 90's as most of those folks who hadn't moved away were all still active. However, there was a point when I lost track of the new bands coming up.
Marc EdwardsI want to be able to shoot laser beams out of my hands at people. That's the kind of stuff that you think all bands should do, but they don't, and I can't understand why most bands don't want to do it.
Wayne CoyneI have a whole iPod full of exceptionally bad music, truly awful stuff including a disproportionate number of one hit wonders from the early '80s and lots of hair bands. I find it utterly impossible to love a song until I know every single word, so listening to live music or new bands is pretty much out.
Lauren WeisbergerThere's a lot of hidden gems in the UK. You sometimes have to dig deep to find them, but there's still a lot of great guitar bands out there. So, in a way it makes you appreciate it more, but then a lot of bands do go missing also.
Jamie RobertsThe bands that have been the most important to me, and the records that have been the most important to me as a fan, have been records that surprised me for one reason or another.
Steve AlbiniI feel so lucky to have found two other, now three other musicians, that I can absolutely communicate with musically and believe in what they're doing almost 100% of the time. I've talked to a few [other] people in bands and that just isn't always the case.
Theresa WaymanI'm not sure I'm going to be that type of artist but I do love cultural icons. Like Solange has been really great at that. Releasing her album end of last year and being really strong in their sound, bands like Little Dragon, artists like James Blake. You know their music when you hear them. They have a really particular sound and it's really cultural and people copy that sound. You hear it in other songs and you're like 'That's a James Blake tune'.
NAOI think the U.K. is an amazing place and has been extremely good to me. Some of my favorite and most-listened-to bands are from England. I have met many good people there and have been in front of some of the most loyal audiences I have ever encountered.
Henry RollinsFriends of friends had bands in college or in their early 20s and had a moment where they had some kind of interest from a record label or manager. It's always interesting how people handle those decisions and those moments.
Noah BaumbachI always freak out when people ask me about my favorite bands or my five favorite records, I just can never do that because it goes through different waves and sometimes you want to listen to something and at other times you want to listen to something else so I don't know.
John BushThe R.E.M and Nirvana successes don't mean much to me except as a potential distraction for bands who want to cash in on the trend. Don't try to sound like someone else. R.E.M and Nirvana don't sound like anyone else.
Greg GinnThe birth of Christ our Lord was more than an incident, it was an epoch in the history of the world... He came to teach us the character of God, and by example and precept pointed out the path which, if we walk in it, will lead us back into his presence. He came to break the bands of death with which man was bound, and made possible the resurrection by which the grave is robbed of its victory and death of its sting.
Heber J. GrantWhen I was four, I think I just wanted to make noise. When I was about 10 years old I was given five CDs for my birthday: Pink Floyd's 'Dark side of the Moon,' the Sex Pistols, Prodigy, Jimi Hendrix, and I can't remember the fifth one, but really different kinds of music. That's when I started to grasp it and enjoy it, listening to it. Then I started being in bands at school.
Eliot Paulina SumnerAs far as bands doing that in a way where they think they're going to fight the government, the only people they're really hurting is the fans.
John PetrucciYou hear about bands who say, "We did one show where only 20 people showed up", well that was our average gig for five years.
Dexter HollandIrony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest.
Robert SmithI somehow always found the right people on my own to jam with as well as playing with all my buddies. I didn't get to a point where I was auditioning for any bands.
John PetrucciThe Edith Head Trio, I would say, would be even less of a musical career than playing the accordion, particularly because I played the accordion in The Edith Head Trio. I'm very impressed by your Googling. The Edith Head Trio and another band, Tzamboni, were two bands I was in after college that played at tiny clubs to little acclaim. Our Gypsy tango version of "When Doves Cry" was our biggest hit.But we were not destined for greatness.
Daniel HandlerDon't believe bands who say it's all about the fans and they want to give their music away for free. The result is they will continue to live in their mother's basement.
Gene SimmonsI started playing guitar when I was 12 and probably from that age knew that I wanted to make music and make my own music. Playing with other bands like the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens was more like an apprenticeship for me than anything.
St. VincentNow I'm having the time of my life being on the road with one of the world's all-time great big bands, and performing with symphonies. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Doc SeverinsenThe first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political.
Penelope SpheerisThe only Train song I like is the one that I play in my act "Drops Of Jupiter". Sheryl Crow has three or four songs that I like; also Dave Matthews Band. With those particular musicians, it's more that there are a few songs that I like rather than their entire body of work. There are a lot of indie bands that I like too. I'm not a snob about music. Does the fact that I like Stephen Sondheim and Broadway musicals make me a fake? Does the fact that I'm "the Billy Joel of comedy" mean that I don't have indie-rock credibility?
Michael ShowalterI understand why some bands don't like test new songs, but for us it's been very helpful and it hasn't really backfired. I was nervous that our second record was - you know, you could hear the whole thing on YouTube before the album came out because we played it all live, but it ended up being something that people appreciated.
Taylor GoldsmithWe were playing a festival in Dublin the other week. There was this other group, like, warming up in the next sort of chalet, and they were terrible. I said, 'Shut them cunts up!' And they were still warming up, so I threw a bottle at them. The bands said, 'That's the Sons of Mumford' or something. 'They're number five in charts!' I just thought they were a load of retarded Irish folk singers.
Mark E. SmithI listen to music every day and that is a fact. My son pointed out the other day that there's not a day that goes by without him listening to music in our house. I'm still an avid punter when it comes to either checking out bands or buying new music.
Jazzie BDonโt ask me why I obsessively look to rock โnโ roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess itโs just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.
Lester BangsI didn't grow up with indie rock - I mean, I listened to bands that are considered indie rock, but I think that term is dead and uninteresting.
Justin VernonOur 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 JonesBeing in two full-time rock bands is pretty impossible. I love to tour but I have a dog and I want to see him. And, being a songwriter, you have to have experiences and do things. You can't just go on tour all the time, otherwise you get nothing to write about. It's finally at a point where the balance is perfectly right.
Neko CaseWhen I think of nu-metal, I think of Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot and even Chevelle - those types of bands.
Austin CarlileAfter watching a couple of live performances of bands like Nirvana, I was really excited and inspired by how raw and powerful it was. I wanted to at least aim in that direction with the guitar and do my own version of it. I know it doesn't really sound like that on the other end, but I wanted guitar, heavy rhythms, and singing to be the stamp of the whole thing.
Panda BearNothing surpasses my performances with small bands, especially with Charlie Parker. A small band doesn't forestall creativity.
Dizzy GillespieMy idea was to release four four-song EPs, just like all the old Limey shoegaze bands used to do.
Keith MorrisI only performed a song so I could not write an essay. I just enjoyed being around bands, and around musicians, and, I didn't want to be the girl who followed the band around. I love singing, I love performing, but it's never been this goal.
Caitlin RoseWidely spaced earth-sheltered towns offer sweeping views over the plains. High-speed trains link the communities. Food is grown in the region. Bikeways are everywhere. Nonpolluting hydrogen powers all vehicles. Sunlight and wind generate the hydrogen. Note the earth-covered bridges, the continuous window bands, the wind machines across the farmlands. In this new America, everything is reused, recycled, conserved.
Malcolm Wells