Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Most guys I know are assholes. I have some great asshole friends, but that's not the point. Friendship has got nothing to do with that. It's can you hang, can you talk about this without any feeling of distance between you? Friendship is the diminishing of distance between people. That's what friendship is, and to me it's one of the most important things in the world.
One guy can ruin an instrument. Jimi Hendrix, bless his heart - how I wish he was still around - almost inadvertently ruined guitar. Because he was the only cat who could do it like that. Everybody else just screwed it up, and thought wailing away (on the guitar) is the answer. But it ain't; you've got to be a Jimi to do that, you've got to be one of the special cats.
By that point, I was about 12, 13 years old. I was this young black kid into rock music, which was kind of strange. People would always assume I'd be into like more modern R&B, which is a stereotype, but that was kind of what was expected. And I had all these guitar magazines of all these musicians that didn't look like me. So I assumed Jimmi Hendrix was one of those.
I want so badly to tell Her it’s going to be all right, that I’ll leave the band and forget this silly crusade. I want to tell Her that I am ready to settle for this life, that she is all I will ever need in the world, and that we’ll never be apart. I want to tell Her that I will protect Her forever. But none of that would be the truth. So I don’t say anything at all.
So many people limit themselves by holding onto that baggage. They cut themselves off at the knees. And for me, meeting my father, and seeing how he was, and seeing that other side of where I came from, allowed me to kind of ascend spiritually. Now not to get all hippy or anything, but, you cant realise your potential unless you LET yourself realise your own potential.
Judi Bari did something that I believe is unparalleled in the history of the environmental movement. She is an Earth First! activist who took it upon herself to organize Georgia Pacific sawmill workers into the IWW…Well guess what friends, environmentalists and rank and file timber workers becoming allies is the most dangerous thing in the world to the timber industry!
The Internet is merely a new means of communication, that's all it is. It serves the purpose of getting information, which it is fantastic at. I mean, I live by the Internet in terms of research and it's incredible - there's nothing that you can't find out about. It's not stopped me going to bookshops but I must say that I don't go into as many because any book I want.
It’s a song about first relationships and letting go. It’s very rare for a relationship to withstand the Earth’s gravitational pull and where it’s going to take people and how they’re going to grow. I’ve heard it said that you can’t really have a true love unless it was a love unrequited. It’s a harsh one, because then your truest one is the one you can’t have forever.
I'm over smoking. You know, I feel like I've gone on long hikes and gotten to the top of the mountain and I'm looking at something beautiful, some great huge landscape, and there's some of the cleanest air that's on the planet. And then I light up, and say, "Ahh, what a great smoking moment this is!" So it's something evil that's taken over, and I want control over it.
I don't think there's a problem. First of all, I don't think music turns people into social liabilities. Because you hear a lyric - there's no medical proof that a person hearing a lyric is going to act out the lyric. There's also no medical proof that if you hear any collection of vowels and consonants, that the hearing of that collection is going to send you to Hell.
I want a soul mate who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don’t already know, and make me laugh. I don’t care what you look like, just turn me on. And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow. I will nibble your mukluks with my own teeth. I will do your windows. I will care about your feelings. Just have something in there.
Audiences - they like colour, you know. I can go out there wearing a red suit, man, and they'll say I'm out of sight ... I think they should be educated; you should always drop something on an audience ... When you get in front of an audience, you should try to give 'em something. After all, they're there looking at you like this. You can't go out and give 'em nothing.
Cynicism and defensiveness are two things constantly levelled at me. Look, I've got time for people, I'm good mannered. I usually find that when you're down, nobody has a bloody minute for you. If I was a nobody, you wouldn't even talk to me. People, in general, don't like you being upfront and civil. They hate you for it. They label you a cynic 'cos you're reasonable.
Ian MacKaye was in London while I was living there. We both decided that even though we had very different lifestyles, we had the same mentality - politically, and in a lot of other different ways. His statement was, "We're going to the same place, except you're taking a taxi, and I'm driving my own car." That's me and Ian MacKaye's relationship. I love him, he's great.
Before music videos first came out, you’d listen to a song with headphones on, sitting in a beanbag chair with your eyes closed, and you’d come up with your own visions, these things that came from within. Then all of a sudden, sometimes even the very first time you heard a song, it was with these visual images attached, and it robbed you of any form of self-expression.
That's it really; it's all love, whichever way you look at it, it's all love. How much you can Get from each other and that's determined by how much you're Giving to each other... But it all starts Within our self and then it spreads to those around us, Good & Bad. But basically that's it, I think it's the Love that we can generate is = to the Love that we get back Amen
How long it will take until we get to a Golden Age where everybody's perfectly in tune with God's will, I don't know; but because of Prabhupada, Krishna consciousness has certainly spread more in the last sixteen years than it has since the sixteenth century, since the time of Lord Caitanya. The mantra has spread more quickly and the movement's gotten bigger and bigger.
I come from a minimum wage working world, as we all did for at least some part of our lives, and that is never out of my rearview. I've never forgotten how much your feet hurt after you've stood on them for like 12 hours. And how the drudgery of a job you hate craps on your entire life; how you treat other people, how you treat yourself, and it really was getting to me.
I felt that film (Let It Be) was set up by Paul for Paul. That is one of the main reasons the Beatles ended. I can't speak for George, but I pretty damn well know we got fed up of being sidemen for Paul. After Brian died, that's what happened, that's what began to happen to us. The camera work was set up to show Paul and not anybody else. And that's how I felt about it.
I mean we [The Beatles] had to go through humiliation upon humiliation with the middle classes and showbiz and Lord Mayors and all that. They were so condescending and stupid. Everybody trying to use us. It was a special humiliation for me because I could never keep my mouth shut and I'd always have to be drunk or pilled to counteract this pressure. It was really hell .
With the audience, I always say it's about giving the people an experience. And what the experience is about, it transcends just the music, and genre, and the venue. It's about the people coming together to share a profound and transformative moment. So that means the listener is actively engaged, and the listener is a part of the show, they're a part of the experience.
I'm not afraid to express the different elements of my personality, and I think there's a bad habit in America now to, label people having multiple personalities, things like this, but it's, I feel like, even on the album I describe myself as a hydra which is, many heads, many different personalities.I don't think you need to be one specific person when you can be many.
The interesting thing about a song like 'Bulletproof Heart' - it was [originally] called 'Trans Am' - the interesting thing about the amalgamation of that song was that the song also lived within us, like we all got to live with the song and it was around for about a year before we recorded it again, so the song got to really transform, which you don't really get to do.
I never try and force-feed any song idea or lyrical message. It's really what's on my mind and what comes out of me. And a lot of these lyrics are metaphors for specific life situations that I've been through, and in most cases, the struggles. Something about human beings wearing sadness heavily on their sleeve inspires me to make something uplifting about the situation.
CSPS is a breath of musical fresh air. With a whale sized hooks and neck wrenching riffs you’ll have more than you need to fall head first into this band’s fanbase. Take a listen and see what all the fuss is about. I’m sure that if the bone tight rhythm section doesn’t lock you in, the finely spun lyric and melody will surely ensnare even the pickiest of musical palette.
I like to put my iPad on the window and leave it there for however long the journey is, so that I'm staring out, and it's staring out. We're kind of staring out together. It's very poetic to me, watching that absent-minded passing of time. You realize how much you've taken in. What is left of that memory of you staring out of the window for an hour? It's all on the iPad.
The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow J on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?
George was the easy part. As for Michael, I had always liked the name, and my father's brother is named Michael. I thought it was a good idea because there are a lot of Greeks in England with the second name of Michael; as a child I had a Greek friend whose second name was Michael. It was like getting the name that I wanted without having to get rid of the Greek element.
I have a really weird relationship with myself where I'll say, "Do it, do it!" and then, "I don't want to do it anymore, I hate photo shoots, I'm so tired of this!" Or, "I wrote a song, and you're gonna sing it!" then, "I can't hit the note." I want to be a behind-the-scenes producer. I really hate being in front of people. But I'm also obsessed with becoming a pop star.
When bands come from that underground scene and go into the mainstream, people just hate it. And it blows my mind. If you're saying you don't like what pop culture is, then change it. And when someone does make an effort to change it, everyone rebels against it and hates it. You can't win. People just want that division to exist. They don't want that division to go away.
I guess I feel like; if you're doing something and people are accusing you of appropriating something like that so obviously, then I would feel like I've failed as a creative person. It's just like stealing something and doing some sort of slight alteration to it - I'd feel like I'm not doing my job as a musician, or as a creative person - if it's just obvious like that.
I don't care if it's Bruno Mars or Aerosmith or ZZ Top... it's about songs. 'Paperback Writer,' 'Satisfaction,' 'Cat Scratch Fever,' 'Walk This Way,' all the killer songs in the world start with an identifiable guitar pattern that is basically a bastardization of either honky-tonk or boogie-woogie. And that's in every cool piece of music in the world that you and I love.
I think everybody should just turn off their TV machines and make up their own songs about whatever comes to mind-their couch, their friends their loaves of bread. Everybody's got their own songs. There should be so many songs out there that it all turns into one big sound and we can put the whole thing into a pickup truck and let it roll off the edge of the Grand Canyon.
Recording studios are filled with technology. They are set in their ways. And to update them means you'd have to change them back. That would be my idea of upgrading. And this will never happen. As far as I know, recording studios are booked all the time. So obviously people like all the improvements. The more technically advanced they are, the more in demand they become.
The question of whether we were misled into the war in Iraq isn't a liberal or conservative or Republican or Democratic question, it's an American one. Protecting the democracy that we ask our sons and daughters to die for is our responsibility and our trust. Demanding accountability from our leaders is our job as citizens. It's the American way. So may the truth win out.
I just went into my studio and started to compile stuff. I was so happy with what was coming out that good momentum just carried over and when I would listen back to some of the riffs and some of the ideas, I was completely happy because I felt like, "wow, this was a breakthrough!" The ideas and the songs were really strong and I couldn't wait to show everybody the stuff.
I've had a lot of typewriters that I've had relationships with; one still has a piece of masking tape that says "$8" on it. I love working on them. I can't fix a computer or a car, but I can fix a typewriter. I like them because you can write on them late at night, depending on what you're fortifying yourself with, and the next morning you can still figure what you wrote.
I think that the sheer fact that music can raise certain questions or put topics on the agenda has in itself already an effect. Just like any other art of cultural expression can do that - books, films, photos, painting - it can bring people together who share certain ideals, who don't find their ideas expressed properly, or even expressed at all, in the mainstream media.
You can't cheat kids. If you cheat them when they're children they'll make you pay when they're sixteen or seventeen by revolting against you or hating you or all those so-called teenage problems. I think that's finally when they're old enough to stand up to you and say, 'What a hypocrite you've been all this time. You've never given me what I really wanted, which is you.
I stood in the bay window at our house and I sang Away In A Manger. It was my first time on stage, but there was nobody watching. I just remember it was so natural and it was such a secret - like masturbating. I felt like I had to wait until everybody was gone. So I guess six years old would be my most important age, 'cause in that moment, I just knew what I wanted to do.
The mind is a very intricate machine. It can store memories, past impressions, grudges, criticisms, judgments. It can hold a lot of stuff. In general, it's only really good at holding onto one thing at a time. Which is why, when we have a lot going on, we feel sort of stressed and we feel tension because the mind is busy trying to figure out what it should focus on first.
There were actually times where I thought, 'Do people even remember us? Are people gonna be interested in hearing what we put out next?'And, you know, there were times I felt like, 'Are there going to be people out there waiting for this record?'. So we kind of live in a bubble, in a sense. We're very closed off to that whole world of thinking about those kinds of things.
I think jazz was just seeking respect and validity because a lot of people didn't believe it was a viable art form, and then they got a lot of attention in Europe. A lot of bands that can't catch flies in the US have these followings in Europe, [but] it's less and less the case. American audiences are way more sophisticated and adventurous than anyone thinks that they are.
There's a reason that so much good material is coming down to the small presses: it's difficult to turn a profit, all things considered. But you can't go into small press publishing and complain about the money. Our Little Island publishing just needs to survive. If we're still around in a few years - in vaguely the same shape as we are today - then, to me, that's success.
The main thing about the character [in the Ordinary World] is that he loves music, and he shares it with his daughter. He's having a mid-life moment, and it's a small moment, really. I think that the character actually really loves where he's at, in his life. He's just trying to have it make a little bit more sense while he figures out what he actually wants to do with it.
The Catholic religion at the time was much darker and more mysterious. The entire mass was in Latin. The church was - if you go to my church now, it's incredibly bright inside. But at - when I was young, it was very dark inside. And it was just the difference in the way that they've painted it since I've gone there. And it strives for a very different and welcoming spirit.
Go without a coat when it's cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it's all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you're made of and what you're capable of. If you're never tested, you'll never define you character.
There's a man who's been out sailing In a decade full of dreams And he takes her to a schooner And he treats her like a queen Bearing beads from California With their amber stones and green He has called her from the harbor He has kissed her with his freedom He has heard her off to starboard In the breaking and the breathing Of the water weeds While she was busy being free
I think that's such an important message, especially for younger women, to know, 'I don't have to come out of the womb painting like Frida Kahlo. My very first thing that I make isn't going to be an around-the-world sensation.' You have to paint a hundred really ugly, barfy, diarrhea paintings before you come up with that one where you start to really get into your groove.
We, as a band, love each other. We're brothers. So we fight. Somebody will call somebody else a douchebag. At the end of the day, we look at how far we've come and realize it would be foolish for us to ever take this for granted. We have a family. And not just a family at home, the family that has grown up with us and supported us through the years. We can't let them down.