Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I know some people will be surprised to hear it, but I've found that my music, whether its blues or rock, or whatever you want to call it, can be channeled into a positive direction that actually helps people.
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.
In terms of an identity, an identity reflects an individuality, by definition. And, if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you can't name it, it means you don't recognize it.
I got caught up in 35 years of Saturday nights. Every night was like party night to me. As a young man, you can do that; it's OK to be an idiot. But I woke up one day, and I realized that 35 years had gone by.
My job is to steel the backbone of people on the frontlines of social justice struggles, and to put wind in sails of those struggles. And people who are fighting on a, on a daily basis, at a grass roots level.
Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.
Don't let your hands dictate what you think you can do. Look at fingerboard charts and imagine your eyes dancing on the notes you want to play, and forget about whether your hands can do it or not. Just try it.
I'm not trying to stay in the same place and I'm not trying to compete with what's currently in fashion. That would be dishonest. But, at the same time, I'm different and the music reflects that to some degree.
I try to become a singer. The guitar has always been abused with distortion units and funny sorts of effects, but when you don't do that and just let the genuine sound come through, there's a whole magic there.
I was 11 years old, and I had been playing classical piano for three years, and suddenly the guitar came and landed in my arms. I fell in love with that instrument, and I still love it today. I love it so much.
Before you can apply chromatic ideas to scales and arpeggios, you have to get the chromatic scale itself under your fingers. You should learn it up and down the neck, and become comfortable with the fingerings.
Well, for the reasons I mention above, although I am not sure the live shows were really so brilliant - but nobody could hear much so perhaps it did not matter! It was certainly a very exciting time for us all.
My first experience with music was my father, he was a stereo buff and he built his own little Hi-Fi center with recorders and everything and I listened to a lot of jazz, which gave me a sensibility for melody.
I'm sort of standing on T-Bone Walker's shoulders, Les Paul's shoulders, Lightnin' Hopkins' shoulders, Muddy Waters' shoulders, you know? And if I've inspired other people, I'm pleased. That pleases me greatly.
I mainly use Stratocasters. I like a lot of different kinds of guitars, but for what I do, it seems that a Stratocaster is the most versatile. I can pretty much get any sound out of it, and I use stock pickups.
I didn't make my first solo record until 1981 so I don't have any 60′s or 70′s recordings but I am working on a large boxed set called DUST to be released next year, the 20th anniversary of my first solo record.
I didn't make my first solo record until 1981 so I don't have any 60's or 70's recordings but I am working on a large boxed set called DUST to be released next year, the 20th anniversary of my first solo record.
The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.
With guitar riffs, we always look for something that 's a little bit special. We've always found that it is harder to come up with something that's nice and simple without getting something that's hard but easy.
I always write the lyrics first. There are one or two exceptions over the years, but that's pretty much the way it's been. The process of applying music to words is a bit like scoring a film. You've got imagery.
Music is music and I think music people are the delivers, the actors, when they put their music out they want to insert their character in it. So they call it such and such so you know how they live so to speak.
Now I'm having to live with sales of around 50,000 per album - but I'm pretty content with my place in the general scheme of things, even if it's meant I don't drive a fancy car and can't afford grand vacations.
Oh yeah - for sure - hardly a week doesn't go by when I don't hear something wonderful that someone has made in some low-budget situation, primarily with a view to selling a few hundred copies at their concerts.
When you're onstage and the audience is smiling and singing and bopping along and you're all on the same level, it's the best feeling in the world. It may sound dumb and corny to say it, but it's like pure love.
You should always think good things and always look for the good in the world. If you look for the bad in the world, you will always find something bad. But if you look for the good you will find it, it is there
Personality wise, we are all kindred spirits. I've said this before; if we [with Mike Mangini ] ever went to high school together we would have been friends. He is just one of us! We felt that immediate connect.
When I got my first Marshall amp, it was so empowering. No one ever forgets their first Marshall amp if you're a guitar player pursuing a big powerful sound. I mean, no one ever forgets their first Marshall amp.
I don't know if I would qualify as mainstream. I think I have managed to function pretty successfully on the fringes of the music world and have been able to play exactly what I have wanted the way I have wanted
The whole idea of rock and roll lifestyle is a cartoon. It's a caricature. And at times, it's made up of people emulating others; a few who actually live that lifestyle and many who claim to live that lifestyle.
I didn't check into rehab. Instead of me heading into a place - I was just drinking too much and I needed to get my life together. I'm still in therapy and stuff like that, but it's good. I'm great. I feel fine.
As much as I love performing, nothing juices me up creatively like being in my own studio for an extended period. Songs, ideas, even paintings are pouring out of me. My inspiration and usual subject matter: life.
I was working with another major label after Warner Bros, and they were telling me who to hire as musicians, what kind of music to play, what producer to use. I mean, what's the point of putting me on the record?
Nothing happened overnight. Every country we went into, we started at the bottom. We knew that because the music we were playing and the attitude we had, we knew we'd be at the bottom and have to work our way up.
It is hard to play Blue Suede Shoes. I know everyone has heard it 10 million times, and that makes it even harder to play it, but there's a very laid back tempo on that. I was surprised at how slow it really was.
Approach your guitar intelligently, and if there are limits, don't deny them. Work within your restrictions. Somethings you can do better than others, some things you can't do as well. So accentuate the positive.
You tend to write as you get older about family love more than you write about romantic love or ooh baby. ... The stuff that you want to celebrate about humanity has always been there and probably always will be.
For me, the most difficult thing is that I am learning melodies on guitar from some songs whose melodies were not meant to be played on guitar. Ever. They were intended mostly for keyboards or melodic percussion.
The sad thing is most people have to check with someone before they do the things that make them happy. We're all passing through; the least we can do is be happy, and the only way to do that is by being selfish.
There are right and wrong reasons for doing solo projects, and this album was done for the right reasons. At the time there was no Judas Priest and I certainly wasn't going to hang my hat up on my musical career.
There are any number of players with extensive jazz backgrounds who haven't been able to fit into other styles," "It all boils down to taste, to playing what's appropriate for the context in which you're working.
Sometimes you're writing a song and you have an image whilst writing a song. I don't think you ever base a songwriting process around a video, but when you're writing a song sometimes it'll be a very visual song.
I don't know if I would qualify as mainstream. I think I have managed to function pretty successfully on the fringes of the music world and have been able to play exactly what I have wanted the way I have wanted.
I'm going through a divorce now. This is the second one, and like baseball, I'm not gonna get three strikes. I've been living by myself for five years and I'm very comfortable. I can play my guitar when I want to.
I have so many entities now as grow older you gain responsibilities, you know, real estate, and I like video, and you know I want to live a little you know, because time is passing, its not as long as it has been.
The REM 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. REM and Nirvana don't sound like anyone else.
Success came to me in my late 20s. I started touring when I was a teenager, so I had already seen the good, the bad, and the ugly side of the music business. Plus, setting up my own record company taught me a lot.
You also get so wound up playing a show that a lot of people need something to bring them down. People who don't know how to handle the situation take drugs. I didn't. I went back to my room with milk and cookies.
Ever since I was really really little, I was just singing all the time. Like one of my favorite games when I was little would be to just have one of my sisters pick a title, and I would impromptu create that song.
Even within the band, if I cannot manage to persuade the members of what I see to be the next course of action, how do you expect the group to deal with the expectations of thousands of people. It is not possible.
Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn’t understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.