Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I made money in my 20s, became sober in my 30s, looked around, and didn't know who I could trust for money advice.
You know what's a great song that will be stuck in your head if I say it? 'Single Ladies,' by Beyonce. Killer song.
It's volatile with GNR. Every night, it's anarchy on stage. Who knows what's gonna happen? That's rock n' roll, man.
Read books and keep informed. The conversation can get old if you don't have some good new topics to bring to the table.
When you know you have a good song, when you're onstage, even if it's just a weird, basic energy, you know your song is good.
I don't have resentments towards anyone I played with or to the guy who bullied me in the sixth grade. I've worked through it.
It's a modern world we live in, with everything at our fingertips, and if it's not at our fingertips, you can dot-com anything.
You become friends with your kids' friends' parents. That's just the way it's gonna be. And sometimes you luck out, and it's great.
We wrote the songs we wrote - we took from our own experiences, melded it together, and wrote what became 'Appetite For Destruction.'
Everybody in Seattle thought I was the chosen one, musically wise. You know, if anyone was going to make it, it was going to be that guy.
I've had a panic disorder since I was sixteen, and they always said that's a subset of depression. And I'm like, 'I don't have depression.'
I don't know where I'm rated. I don't pay attention to that. I'm really so just all into my craft. It's not a contest. I try to play the best.
If you don't have a good rhythm section, your band is toast; you're a bar band. Good rhythm section, you've got a chance to get out of the bar.
When you're a musician, you are around your peers a lot, like Slipknot and Alice In Chains... you name the band. We're all just kind of friends.
'The Taking' is the closest thing to a 'concept' record that I have ever been involved with. Pain, loss, triumph, and redemption. Life. Bring it.
Words and titles can be used as dictums and guides for all of us. A certain word can suddenly snap us back to a good place. 'Rocker' works for me.
When the record company pays you an advance, it is just that - an advance. And it's at worse rates than any bank would charge you to pay them back.
Yes, confidence was knowing I could do anything. But, I realized, confidence must always be rooted in work. In sweat. In pain-good pain. And in honesty.
Personally, I had made a good amount of dough for a 30-year-old guy, but I didn't know a thing about money. I'm not a dumb guy, but I couldn't figure them out.
Music was going to be my thing. Was I going to make a living at it? That was kind of a joke. It was just my passion, and if I was broke doing my passion, so be it.
I think you can tell stories and give perspectives and yet still keep stuff for yourself, too. I keep a lot of my life private, even in a public forum like writing.
Sometimes, when you get into a record, it's like writing a book, and you get so far inside the story you can't tell anymore if it's gonna be good to an outside listener.
Being in a band is the best place I can think of to be as up-front as possible. If you let something stew, it'll grow into a mountain of nonsensical black mud in no time.
I got to the point of insanity, but I also got out, but during the insane times, I felt invincible, and I felt creative and wonderful, too, but I was also hiding something.
I`m down to Earth, a lover of music, making music and making love. I love to make people happy and I think I`m basically a good person … despite what you might read about me.
I didn't start off as a bass player, and Guns was the first band I really, like, 'Oh, I'm gonna be a bass player. This is what I'm gonna do.' And I really dove into it head first.
I have a teenage daughter and a 10-year-old daughter. Things are pink and fluffy at my house, with two little dogs. It's pretty funny to be me now. And I'm in on the joke that is my life.
One of my first memories is marching with my mom. I was in kindergarten with with the Catholic ladies when Martin Luther King Jr. got shot. We wore the black armbands and marched downtown.
In rock n' roll, we don't sell records at all like we used to. Yet the artist still has to pay to make records. So you've just got to get out on tour and be smarter about your merchandising.
I saw some really amazing stuff with Axl. We worked really well together. We were good friends. And I hope to perhaps have that friendship back one day, although it's not something I wait around for.
I think after 9/11, here in America, I saw something extraordinary. I saw neighbors looking after neighbors. I don't think anybody asked who anybody voted for. It was people taking care of other people.
The thing is that business and success, and how hard it is, doesn't look any different whether you're playing a gig at eleven o'clock at night or you're going to work at nine in the morning at a law firm.
That connectivity with the audience that I get to enjoy, that's my church. It's not one of ego or anything like, 'I'm on the stage and the lights.' It's just this connectivity, and it's always been that way for me.
I had a column for the 'Seattle Weekly' for five years, and there was one column that was called 'How To Be A Man,' and it was kind of tongue in cheek; it was really tongue in cheek. And I got a book deal from that column.
I do love the term 'rocker.' The word itself imbues a ton of imagery and romance. But I don't think a rocker needs to have AC/DC and Metallica and the Black Keys rumbling through their car speakers speeding headlong into the night.
I always loved writing, but I feel like I really started writing when I got my BlackBerry . It was the first time I could take these crazy thoughts in my head and actually get them out. This little device became my journal on the road.
When you're in a band, a marriage - whatever, it's kind of the same deal - there's a lot of things that you see, and people trust you with information about their lives. Call it a 'bro code' or whatever you wanna call it, but there are certain things you do not tell. At least, I don't.
When I started going to business school, I started getting calls from my peers asking for my help. I thought, 'Well, there are a lot of people like me who make a bunch of money and just get so scared of it and don't know what to do with it.' I just didn't want to be 60 years old and broke.
Not to name names, but a lot of pop female artists you see, they don't write their own songs. Lot of top male artists and boy band artists, they don't write their own songs. They're just a product. They sell, they sell, they sell. They don't care about musical integrity, any of that kind of stuff.
Playing in (the Neurotic Outsiders) with John Taylor was great. A lot of pussy every time we played a gig. So many chicks. It was, like, 'Wow, John, really? So this is what it was like, huh?' And there would be like a couple guys with mohawks and a guy with, like, a jean jacket coming in to see me and Jonesy!
By the time Guns n' Roses spent 28 months from 1991 to 1993 touring the 'Use Your Illusion' albums, the tour staff sometimes approached 100 people. We were carrying not only backup girl singers, a horn section, and an extra keyboard player, but also chiropractors, masseuses, a singing coach, and a tattoo artist.
People in Seattle - and I'm speaking from experience - are indoors more. It used to just rain a ton, and as a result, you'd be inside listening to music all the time and playing. You'd all rehearse at each other's houses and share ideas. There was no competition. When I got to L.A., I was really stunned by the competition.
I didn't have any work to do, and I had files of my personal and Guns N' Roses financial statements for the previous eight years. I wanted to learn how to read these, but I didn't trust anybody. I just got a lightbulb in my head and said, 'I want to go to school.' That began my journey, taking accountancy and business classes at Seattle.
It's funny: when I started playing bass in 1984, you had guys like Paul Simonon fron the Clash, John Paul Jones, Lemmy, and Nikki Sixx was the head guy in Motley Crue, and you had all this post-punk stuff like Magazine and Killing Joke where the bass sort of lead the way. Not that I picked it to sort of be a main dude, but it intrigued me.
Back when I was single and Guns were on the 'Illusions' tour, chicks were, like, left and right. They were falling over themselves. And I saw the sadness in that. The first six months of that, it's like, 'Killer! Chicks are hot. They're into me.' And then you realize they're not really into you. They're into the guy they saw on the JumboTron.