Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Before Dylan, before rock became art, it was a wonderful fusion of pop structure and personal statements.
My lifelong friend and mentor Frank Barsalona is gone. And the music business as we knew it went with him.
I was 100 percent political in the '80s - the first time around, let's call it, my first life as an artist.
I think I'm one of the few people who have experienced New Jersey becoming fashionable twice in a lifetime.
I think it's important that all 50 years of rock 'n' roll live in the same place, because it's all connected.
For me, it all comes down to one issue: if we can get money out of political systems, the whole world will change.
It's a challenge every year with a TV series. You want to keep evolving and keep it going. That's part of the fun.
As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.
I have a bigger mission than any kind of specific politics, which is trying to restore the accessibility of rock 'n' roll.
Primal Scream could be the biggest band in the world. They are fantastic when they make rock records - once every 10 years.
Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.
I played around with the idea of touring with a soul revue, with Smokey Robinson, Sam Moore, Darlene Love, people like that.
Part of the job of being a producer is the Vulcan mind meld, where you listen not to what they're saying but what they mean.
Rock 'n' roll is a participatory sport. It ain't passive. It ain't TV. Go out there and rock 'n' roll and dance and have fun.
I am Italian. Springsteen's mostly Italian, too. We're both Italians with Dutch names, one of the many things we have in common.
'Sopranos' was a fascinating moment, just catching our whole culture by surprise, a fun ride to be on while I'm learning the craft.
For those who are familiar with my work, 'Soulfire' is a return to how most people identify me, which is that soul-meets-rock thing.
Anytime you spend six months on a song (Born to Run), there's something not exactly going right. A song should take about three hours.
You want everybody to like your work, but when you look at what's fashionable or trendy, it's pretty obvious that I don't exactly fit.
It's become uncool to play other people's songs, and that's absurd. It has got to change. It's the reason why everything's so mediocre.
Your celebrity capital rises and falls in any given year. And when you have some - temporarily, usually - you try to use it for some good.
For me, making a record is a vacation. I'd like to do it more often. Just, chances are impossible... It's a very expensive hobby, you know?
Politics, in general, when you're trying to change the world for the better in any kind of way, no matter how small or how big, it's inches.
I did 10 years on 'Sopranos,' but the whole craft of acting is relatively new to me. I'm still learning that, and I'll be learning that forever.
The first rule of rock and roll is it's all about live. Then you have to learn a second craft, which is making records. It should go in that order.
Rock'n'roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community.
Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community.
I was in the back of the car with my girlfriend, the Rascals came on the radio and I realized their song was sexier than the sex I was trying to have.
I did nothing but international liberation politics for ten years, and usually it was like, you gain an inch, you lose a half an inch. It's slow going, man.
A lot of the idealism of the Sixties was spot on, from the environmentalism to the war to the Civil Rights movement, the women's rights movement, you name it.
The Rascals are something else. They're up there with the Beatles, and Stones and Byrds. That level of musicality. They have a real chemistry. It is like magic.
I had the wonderful good luck of having Jimmy Gandolfini as my mentor and David Chase as my godfather, two of the most talented guys in the history of television.
Believe me, if Donald Trump didn't have some point that he's making, hitting home with people, he could not have come this far - as much as a showman as he may be.
We never understood the concept of people going onstage and giving anything less than 100 percent. Maybe that's a blue-collar work ethic, but I call it just ethics.
I know what it takes to make a band, how they should interact, what makes a record sound like it's a band - everything having to do with a band, I happen to be into.
I tend to personally judge issue by issue rather than sort of endorsing this football-team mentality that we fall into in this country, where it's all about the team.
The only reason why I made solo records was because I got so obsessed with politics, and that is quite personal. I don't really philosophically believe in solo records.
Garage rock is music for older people with young souls and young people with old souls. It's a certain sensibility, and you may have it when you're 17 or when you're 67.
The energy that comes when you compel people to dance stays with you your whole career - whether you are playing to 100,000 people at Glastonbury or 1,000 kids in a club.
There are... certainly more innovations on 'Revolver'... but the truth of the matter is 'Sgt. Pepper' has something that was just completely different and unique at that moment.
You think your congressman is working all day to get you a job? He may want to. He or she is probably not a bad person. They probably want to do the right thing. But they can't.
I'm not pretending to be an academic, or to have this down to a science. It's strictly my taste. But there is a connection between everything I play and the sets I put together.
You're either on the Republican team or the Democratic team, and all that matters is that your team wins. Judging by history, regardless of which team wins, the people always lose.
I was deep into it - worldwide liberation politics as well as domestic - but by the end of the '80s, I had decided it all comes down to one single issue: campaign-finance elimination.
You ask people to fall in love with you. To need you. To want you. To buy your records and come see you. You have an emotional contract with people. To break up is to violate that contract.
Little Steven - the songwriter, producer, and arranger - stayed alive doing the 'Lilyhammer' score. That pretty much took up three or four years of my life, and all of my musical energy went into that.
Where do I begin with 'The Godfather?' It's like explaining why the 'Bible' is so popular. I'll always remember seeing the first one because it was the only time I went to the movies with my grandfather.
It's so liberating to play a song in front of 50,000 people that you've never played before. Not something you played a long time ago and have forgotten: Never. Played. Before. There's something magical about it.
The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest.
Like most people, I've always felt using words like 'best' when applied to art is a fun way for critics to stay busy at the end of the year, and I guess a good way to help get ratings for awards shows, which is fine.