Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think I've probably had one of my guitars on display at every Hard Rock Cafe in the world.
There's no rush to ever put out a new Cheap Trick record. We put it out when we feel like it.
When I do interviews, I always go in with the attitude that something good can happen from it.
When we toured with AC/DC, we always had to bring our A game. They really felt like our equals.
When a guitarist can evoke a certain mood through his playing, that's what's most important to me.
Whenever we tell the truth, nobody believes us. We lie, and people take it as etched-in-stone fact.
My parents were both opera singers, and they also were both heavily into religious and church music.
The song 'Hello There' was written because we never got a soundcheck. 'Hello There' was our soundcheck.
If you don't have a great chorus, write a good bridge first. I often do that and find I write good bridges.
I've owned about 2,000 guitars through the years because I've traded a lot and given away and sold some stuff.
I love guitars, and guitars love me, but sometimes they need new homes where they can live to rock another day.
I've seen bands come out and begin their concerts with these long, slow, boring songs. Are they kidding, or what?
Soundgarden and Metallica, The Ramones, Everclear... I think they all wanted to see if we still knew how to play.
The Sex Pistols had it all - they had the snarl, they had the I-don't-give-a-crap attitude - plus, they could play.
We always record with the whole band. That's key to capturing the feel, especially trying to get a good basic track.
There's no way we could make up what we are. The group is just what everyone is. Each of us has a different audience.
Look at Bob Dylan: his voice is not a great sound, but it gets the idea across... and that is what's really important.
Every other year, I spend Thanksgiving in England with Dave Clark from the Dave Clark Five and a bunch of other people.
It's an honor that people give a crap about us. We're in a rock band; we're not supposed to be treated with any respect.
I always thought I wrote good bridges. I was a bit more impressed with the bridges I wrote than maybe the songs I wrote.
I just wanted to write about stuff that was happening in real life, and that's not just love songs about your girlfriend.
The Ramones were American, and I knew about them, and I thought they were interesting. But they were like a pop band to me.
Have a good work ethic. You've got to practice, practice, practice. I'm not telling you what to practice - that's up to you.
We may not be proud of every song we've ever done - or been forced to do - but I believe we've done more than meets the eye.
I was never going to be very cute. I always looked for the best people to play with and, 'cause, to make myself look better.
I feel like such an idiot... you know, that our band didn't break up just so we can re-form and become more and more popular.
When I write songs, it's just me and a cassette player - or at least it used to be before smartphones - to quickly record a basic idea.
When you're growing up you need your parents, but you don't want to be associated with them because you're trying to have your own life.
I can't stand it when groups come back for an encore, and they play some slow thing. Oh, brother! It's like, 'Had I known that, I would've left.'
We're Cheap Trick, and the majority of people know about three songs, and the real huge fans know about eight. There are 292 songs people have never heard.
Our band is rock n' roll. We were never just a studio band trying to make everything perfect. It was never supposed to be perfect. It was supposed to be cool.
Hendrix was a different kind of guitar player. It was like, 'Holy cow, this guy can sing, he can play all this weird stuff... what is this?' It was a new kind of music.
I always use my Les Paul. I have a Hamer as well. I use a Tele and an Esquire - once in a while, I will use a Strat, and I never use any pedals... except for in my car.
We've got the pretty-boy lead singer and the fat, dumpy drummer, and I'm the zany guitarist. Sure, we've played up the image at times. But it's the music that matters most.
I never tried to emulate The Beatles, and I never really wanted to be like The Rolling Stones. I never really felt that I had the look or the demeanor of veteran musicians.
I started out as a drummer, and when I was 9, my drum teacher had an album out. He was the rudiment king! He signed it for me, 'Rudimentally yours, Frank Arsenault.' How cool is that?
I always hated watching bands: the guy would break a string or be out of tune, and I have perfect pitch, so it would always tick me off when a guy is up there, and he'd break a string.
The only time I have a problem is when I have to get in a vehicle after we play and sit there in a cramped position for a couple of hours to drive to the next place. Then I get super stiff.
If you can say something special on the guitar, then you're going to perk my ears up. But if you're just gonna run through all the scales, then I can always find something else to listen to.
We're basically a rock band - guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But we take it further than that. We can be rotten, dirty, and heavy as anyone, but at the same time, we've got a lot of melody.
People say, 'Oh, Rick, he's crazy.' Well, I'm crazy, and I'm not crazy... When I went to my high school reunion, I was the only one there doing what he said he was going to do. How crazy is that?
I didn't want to be one of the Beach Boys or one of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band. I mean, we appreciated that music. But I didn't want to grow a beard to look like Roy Wood just because I liked him.
I took one guitar lesson, and they wanted me to play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' or 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore,' and that was the last guitar lesson that I ever took, so I taught myself what I wanted to know.
I actually did my research and tried to get kind of like a working visa for Australia. It always seemed like it was a land of opportunities. The same size as the United States with one-tenth of the population.
Basically, I try to let the song dictate what guitar I use. If it's a really loud, crazy song, I'll pull out the cheapest, oldest guitar I own, one that feeds back easily. But most of the time, I just use whatever's around.
I've taken all the mirrors out of my house because when I'm playing onstage, I feel like I'm still in high school. I feel like that kid that wanted to play in his first band, and then I look in a mirror, and it's like, 'Uh-oh!' It ain't pretty.
Duane Eddy is somebody I wanted to play like. I discovered him before The Beatles, and he totally got to me. He sent me a note back in 1977 and said that he really liked what Cheap Trick were doing. That's one of those 'Wow!' moments, you know?
We tried to act trendy. We took one of our songs and tried to make a dance mix. They put it on the turntables, unannounced, in Los Angeles and New York the same weekend, where they had a big dance crowd going wild. It cleared the floor on both coasts.
I'm in a band. I have the basic idea, but when you surround yourself with really good players, why would I tell anyone what to play, because they're that good. They don't tell me what to play. They might encourage me, so that's what I do. I encourage them.
I have four warehouses full of stuff. I have every boarding pass of every flight I've ever been on. I have all the old contracts that we had from all the clubs and concerts we played, every one of them, up from 1980. Guitar picks and amps - it goes on and on.