Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you watch your favorite guitarists play, notice how little their hands and fingers move sometimes. The economy of motion can't be overemphasized.
I write almost every single part of my songs, even the actual drum parts sometimes, whether they be simple or layered with many different instruments.
Influence, people think about it as someone you like but influence is also what you're revolted by. In fact, often it's what you're running away from.
Fever' was good for how young we were, but for me it's kind of like a yearbook picture. You look at it like, 'Oh, man, that's the suit I was wearing?'
If you took a little of Sam Cooke and a little of Little Richard, and poured it in a jar and shook it up and poured it out you would get Otis Redding.
In a way, I think the whole business is pretty corrupt. It's like anything else where people make a lot of money - it's really hard for the little guy.
I was my own teacher and pupil, in a comradeship so firm and persevering that the most trying incidents of my life served only to strengthen the union.
When I began, the guitar was en-closed in a vicious circle. There were no composers writing for the guitar, be-cause there were no virtuoso guitarists.
We've been in front of really big audiences, and people have said there's a couple of hundred thousand people out there, but I've never really noticed.
I read all the reviews. I remember the first review I ever read about our band was, 'They'll be gone tomorrow; they'll be gone quicker than they came.'
There are so many people I love in the United States, and I've had such great adventures in this country and have been so well received by people here.
My mother had a horrific life. At fourteen, she was in the Nazi concentration camps. Her sense about life now is, every day above ground is a good day.
Rock bands are a lot like football teams: If a guy is on drugs and messes up, get someone else who's proud to wear the uniform and be part of the team.
The public is usually slow to catch on to new things, and its important that musicians stick to their guns and not look for that instant gratification.
I've been fascinated with all kinds of weapons my whole life, and as I have been able to afford to acquire pieces, here and there I started to collect.
There's no doubt arena shows are exciting, but you don't get that up close and personal kind of vibe, and that's what rock n' roll is all about for me.
Rock music is a funny thing: You can actually take it too far sometimes, and then it's not rock music anymore - it's something else, but it's not rock.
Something like trying to protect yourself all the time, things like trying to outwit fate. Those things can be the worst thing you can do for yourself.
I wanna go in the studio and just go back to the same amps and stuff I'm so comfortable with the sound of. Which I think is important to stay original.
The jazz clubs wind up having only rich tourists - the kids can't come. If they do, then they spend their entire monthly allotments on a 45-minute set.
Punk rock seemed to make sense. I was listening to The Clash and I really loved their social messages and they have a great history of fighting racism.
Well, in the sense that we do not tour or record together anymore - then I suppose not. But if our old recordings get heard more we shall be delighted.
But above that, most mature adults can hold their attention on something for 45 minutes, whether they like it or not. But above that requires training.
However, in modern conceptual frameworks there is a more sophisticated view. I would say that the act of music exists in several worlds simultaneously.
When you have a life-threatening illness like cancer, and you're faced with the alternative, it gives doing whatever it is you do a much sweeter taste.
I could have gone on to be an engineer full time, except that there was more demand for my playing. But the love of working the board never leaves you.
My favorite moment of the whole thing was when John Belushi suggested that I get a hold of all the blues records I could so I could research the music.
Especially early on, I had no idea what I was going to be asked to do when I walked into a studio. I was doing 26 sessions a week - all day, all night.
Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It's the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.
Well there's floodin' down in Texas. All of the telephone lines are down. Well, I've been tryin' to call my baby, Lord, and I can't get a single sound.
Some people only dream about touring around the world with their friends and that's exactly what we're doing, and we could never take that for granted.
What is poverty, if not violence. Like, the number of people who die every year from starvation and from hunger and poverty is in the tens of millions.
If you're a guitarist, you should not be intimidated by using your instrument as a synthesizer, but you shouldn't feel that you have to own one, either.
My overall responsibility is to be truthful. If people pay money to come and see me, looking for something other than that, then they've made a mistake.
I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.
My dad was the cause of me being in show business. He was not only in poetry but in acting a bit. He was Mordecai in the play 'A Dream of Queen Esther.'
[Calling you a] star is just a trick. It's like a straw man thing. They [people] set you up just to knock you over. It's bull. You avoid it, I avoid it.
The public is usually slow to catch on to new things, and it's important that musicians stick to their guns and not look for that instant gratification.
The way I was brought up, there was a little bit of prodding to do something more practical, and I wasted a lot of time trying to be a practical person.
I think what I'm going to do is get more balance in my life to still be able to go out and play the hard rock 'n' roll and do what I like to do in music
What I do on my solo stuff is just the most natural version of who I am, and I’m trying to represent the feelings that I’m feeling as purely as possible
When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame decided to open up the voting beyond their inner circle, to the actual fans, that's when I think everything changed.
After a while I thought it didn't make any sense to use a pick. It's kind of like typing with one finger on each hand instead of using all your fingers.
I had heard some women make comments about my chest, so why not show it off? Nobody wants to see a fat guy in tights. That wouldn't be fair to the fans.
It was just like Howlin' Wolf. Once you arrive at the point that you understand it, the emotional factor is darker than some of the saddest blues stuff.
The older I get, the more I just like plugging directly into my amp. I'm tired of trying to impress myself with weird sounds. It's about the notes more.
I wanted to be a composer before anything else. And my sister was listening to Led Zeppelin in the other room! When I heard that, it was a game-changer.
I think that new artistic challenges help you grow both as a person, as an artist, and then they feed back into your other work, and tend to magnify it.
There are a lot of obligations when you put out a record and it does well. People want to talk to you, which is nice. So then you make sure you do that.
That's the exact concept behind the music: to take that kind of, I guess whatever you want to call it, jazz sensibility - but not have it be about solos.