Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think no artist can claim to have any access to the truth, or an authentic version of an event. But obviously they have slightly better means at their disposal because they have their art to energize whatever it is they're trying to write about. They have music.
My whole life has been completely about being underestimated. I remember when Blink signed to a major label, and we had a debut party for the signing. No one came to party, only the guy that signed us. And I remember sitting there, like, "S**t, no one likes this."
On our first record, man, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just playing. I was over playing. You're as green as you can be with no experience in recording or knowing how sometimes a song can work: when it's too much, when it's not enough, when it's not right.
Sometimes I'll fall off the wagon, but you learn that there's a time and a place. I'm young and I wanna have fun and go crazy, but then you go home and you're a mom and you have to give all that time to your family. It's just finding out when to do what and where.
To be honest, I would probably rather spend, like, a month in prison than spend a month rehearsing with some musicians, metalheads. I pick prison over that, really. And I say that knowing well what prison is like, so don't get me wrong here. Prison sucks big time.
You listen to Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio in it, and it's not Black Sabbath. They should have just called it 'Heaven and Hell' right from the beginning. Because you listen to that 'Heaven and Hell' album, that doesn't sound anything close to Black Sabbath.
R&B is the one thing that has influenced every kind of music. Every artist that there is, from those that are sung the most to Adele - you know, she was so influenced by so many R&B artists and soul music - it's clear in her writing that that's where it comes from.
I'm passionate about creating new systems that are more holistic to humankind. What do I mean by that? I mean, create new systems of business so that people with ethics both exploit their goods and their gifts while not exploiting the earth, exploiting one another.
My dad was young; he went to work. But he'd been to war. He'd seen some of the world. It wasn't like he was going to be an extensive traveler or something. It didn't seem to be in his nature or in the nature of his parents or many of the folks in my family, really.
One summer, when I was elementary-school age, my neighbors and I built guitars and keyboards out of scrap wood, painted them in bright colors, and formed the cover band Lil' 'D' Duran Duran. We didn't make our own noise or even pretend to play our fake instruments.
I've never tried to be anything but me. Even with Slipknot, where it can almost feel like a roll sometimes, it's still a part of who I am. It's a very strong and passionate part of who I am, and I'm lucky enough to have an audience that is really open to what I do.
As a storyteller, I've always been fascinated with the idea of recreating this notion of choices in fiction. My dream was to put the audience in the shoes of the main protagonists, let them make their own decisions, and by doing so, let them tell their own stories.
There’s always going to be ups and downs in life and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel the pain. Pain is good. It makes you stronger in time. You will realize how great the ‘great’ really is. Life is about ups and downs. You just have to be able to ride the waves.
The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation.
I destroyed a lot of guitars trying to get them to do what I wanted, but I learned something from every guitar I tore apart, and discovered even more things. Things like if the string is not straight from the bridge saddle to the nut, you're going to have friction.
The whole music business in the United States is based on numbers, based on unit sales and not on quality. It's not based on beauty, it's based on hype and it's based on cocaine. It's based on giving presents of large packages of dollars to play records on the air.
I think people who truly can live a life in music are telling the world, ‘You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don’t need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it’s the very best, and it’s the part I give most willingly
Satire is used for political purposes all the time, but obviously there's a time and a place. I think in the current climate, it can be very difficult to speak your mind, but sometimes, I believe, we're all in danger and I think this discussion needs to be widened.
In 2008 it's easy to get huge before you have an album out with the Internet. I think that's great and you see a lot of artists like that. It seems like it's becoming rarer to find a band that has been touring for six years, doing small shows and then breaking out.
Hanson is not the pop band that a lot of people think we are. I think we're a lot more rooted in a lot of music history... we're songwriters, we're singers, we're players first. We're not entertainers, we're not celebrities, and frankly, we don't really want to be.
You have to look at the body of work you're doing and then figure out the best way for people to digest it. You want people to come in and listen to all of it and understand the entire project. I think it's bad when everyone's like, "This is how you have to do it."
This is my dream. I ain't giving up. I see a band like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they've had their ups and downs, but they've continued with heart. We look up to that. I see Papa Roach being around for another 15 years. We've always wanted to be a career band.
I think the biggest wrestling match-up I have is how to respond to the word "quirky." Or the alternate, "nerdy." Both are essentially benign to the reader, but if you're a writer just sort of involved in your creative process, they seem like very small motivations.
The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?
I got into alternative rock in the early 80s, bands like Husker Du and The Replacements. Bob Mould's playing was a huge influence. It was very heavy with a lot of open tunings, which was great because I played in trios, so I used open tunings to get a fuller sound.
I think that it's so powerful for me to go see someone like Bridget Everett at Joe's Pub and watch her weave her songs in and out of these funny, tragic stories - you can talk and sing and it's not this horrible offense, you're going to get thrown in artistic jail.
'Europe '72' was a super influential record full of fantastic songs and amazing experimental musicianship. I always valued both of those aspects in what Sonic Youth has done through the years - being able to get very abstract and very concrete within the same song.
There were a number of false starts where I was trying to make solo albums. They would get constantly folded into group efforts. In retrospect, I can say fair enough, that you call yourself a band member, and you've got to step up to the plate when the need arises.
For me, it's hard to enter any situation with people where we're considering everyone equals, because I bring all of this massive baggage into anything that I do, preconceptions of my work. That's a lot for the people that I might be bringing along with me to bear.
I didn't start writing music until I was a sophomore in college. I would steal my roommate's guitar and sit on the front porch and kind of blend this weird spoken word and these little melodies over simple chords; that really started my whole journey as a musician.
There's still a lot I'm angry about, a lot of human behaviour that's appalling and despicable, but you choose what you can fight against. I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea and it would change things.
When I first started seeing (the show) come together, I was blown away. It is unbelievable. And to see Vince singing, and behind him girls hanging by chains, and Harleys on the stage and the pyrotechnics going it's like, this is what I want to see in rock 'n' roll.
They say the music you listen to in your formative years stays with you and leaves an impression for the rest of your life. For me, the things that I fell in love with happened in the '70s, when artists were nurtured by record companies and it wasn't about singles.
I read The Bell Jar, and then I read her memoir and her diaries, and a third book, an outside opinion. Just the way she made the pillows so neat on the oven door. It just seems to be the opposite of, if you're going to take your life, in a horrible rage it happens.
I was a little boy singing sad songs, about 9 or 10 years old in the woods. I listened to my voice coming back to me. It was as high as you could go. I dreamed of being famous as a singer when I was on those cotton fields. I wanted to see the world and meet people.
The passage of time eliminates some of the more intimate details of one's existence. The routine trivia like passing water and shitting and the amount of food and alcohol consumed in the course of daily survival. Sure, there were girls. Lots of'em. It's inevitable.
Apart from the fact that I've got a strange job, I do lead a fairly normal life. I do my own shopping. I don't feel constrained by who I am because of what I do; I often feel disappointed by my lack of ability. I get frustrated at myself, but I think everyone does.
Into the woods, my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent, Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him: The thorn-tree had a mind to Him, When into the woods He came.
If it had been any different, if I had been born just one minute later, or been in the wrong pace at the right time or vice versa, the life that I've lived and come to love would not exist. And that is a situation that I would not want to consider in the slightest.
I really believe in albums, even though some people believe the year of the album has passed. I love singular pop songs or tracks, but what really affects me most deeply is if there's an hour of music or 45 minutes of music that flows really well and tells a story.
Sometimes we listen to too many commentators about things that don't affect their lives because they're in a different tax bracket. Or to the so-called clergymen giving their interpretation of God's word, and yet they're not rolling the same way in their own lives.
I think honestly, SOME people who think they’re gay, they’re confused. People can misconstrue closeness for love. People can feel connected, they bond. I’m not saying all [gay people are confused]. Some people have a desire to be with the same sex. But that’s them.
Whenever I donate a hunting trip for the Children's Leukemia Foundation, Ronald McDonald Cancer House, all these children's charities, I offer the anti-hunters an opportunity: if you donate more to the children's charity than the hunters donate we won't go hunting.
There's this bubblegum pop thing which is prevalent now that we haven't had before. People's ears are slightly de-tuned; they've been exposed to this weird synthetic, implausibly upbeat, Mickey Mouse stuff which I think is just weird; it's not really a human sound.
It's amazing that you can listen to any song and you can always tell when there's some substance beneath it and when there isn't. Even if it's poetically written and technically brilliant, I'd rather hear something that's all over the place but has some soul to it.
I definitely road test music. I'll drive in the car and look up at the sky and that often makes it more clear, like what's good and what's not. Driving in darkness is amazing, because you really feel the energy and what has presence, spirit to it, and what doesn't.
I've always loved the mixture of crushing live drums with a programmed groove, that really cool blend, like in the verse there's a really funky drum beat that is programmed then it comes in to the chorus; you've got that enormous human feel where the band kicks in.
It's very confusing when fame comes early on in your career. You get a little bit bent out of shape in terms of what's important. Fame is like the dessert that comes with your achievements - it's not an achievement in itself, but sometimes it can overpower the work.
My dad died, I think, at 87. So I'll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I'm not trying to lose weight.
Actually, I was having dinner with Michael [Stipe, of R.E.M.] when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that.