Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I take songwriting very seriously and I wouldn't want anything I do to be construed as frivolous or mundane.
Seeing a young band, seeing that hunger and the raw spontaneity, is good for me. It keeps me young, so to speak.
For me, music is just one road. I dont have a specific pursuit; generally. I just try to be more aware of myself.
I was good at sports - basketball, football, tennis and dropped them all. At 16, I didn't care about sports anymore.
When I grew up, I had influences as diverse as Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix.
I was always regarded as being better than ninety percent of the kids in school, but I was also something of a loner.
We don't want to categorize our music. Some people say you need a definite musical direction to give a group visibility.
I don't know if anyone necessarily looks at themselves and what they do as being terribly significant one way or another.
You can't just say, 'God help me,' and he's there. It takes a little bit more work on the part of the individual, I think.
Usually, when I'm having a good time, I don't think about it that much. I tend to become more reflective or introspective.
I wouldn't want to end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the 'Master of Hip-Hop Samples,' but you take what you can get.
I do keep my eyes and ears open but I don't spend a lot of time looking at what other people are doing to see how I can fit in.
For me, music is this incredibly cerebral trip. You turn on the radio or put on a record, and it's your song, it's what you see.
When I was a kid, I was interested in folk music. But rock represented power, and I became the best rock guitarist in my school.
I'd gone to New York at an early age, and I got beat up a little bit, emotionally. So I thought I'd go home and go to music school.
I had great trouble believing in myself, so I didn't believe in my success - I didn't enjoy my success, which I thought was insane.
It's very important for me to try to get to the people. I'm not shy. It's nice to give the fans a little extra, to let them inside.
I got out of the business because I went from being the biggest artist on my record label to someone they didn't even want to have around.
Most of us, whether we like it or not, we grow up and start having a different view of what we've done and who we are and where we're going.
I guess I could sit around and say, 'Gee, I wish I were playing at the Capital Centre tonight instead of Hammerjacks,' but it doesn't happen.
Success hasn't changed me at all. I'm still the same cocky, arrogant guy I've always been. The only difference now is that I'm busy all the time.
Take 'The Stroke,' for instance. Plenty of people saw sexual connotations in that song but to me it was about what goes on in the business world.
I never try to create a different personality or anything like that. I'm not like David Bowie or somebody like that, who changes personas each year.
I try to remember our relative insignificance on this planet and that these seemingly important things do not mean quite as much as we think they do.
When you're on stage playing, when I plug in a guitar and chord, I'm 16 years old again. I feel the same excitement. It's very overwhelming. It engulfs you.
I don't have to forsake my career as a musician. I know how to write songs - that's not going to leave me. But I think it's good to explore some other avenues.
My music has been called heavy metal, but that's not an accurate description. I'd rather call it articulate rock because it expresses many feelings and emotions.
I used to be a big arena person. I thought more people equaled more intensity, but smaller places are a lot more intimate, I feel more connected with the audience.
That's a dangerous combination, serious and rock 'n' roll. But yeah, I'm pretty serious. I've been at this a long time, and it takes a certain amount of seriousness.
Certainly, I don't believe in rebellion for its own sake. But I think if you strive to do something in an individualistic way, you just become a rebel by definition.
Music is cyclical, but I've never thought of the music I make as being so off the wall or left field that it wouldn't always have an audience that would relate to it.
Piper took me one step further in that it got my first real recording contract but the band just didn't quite mature. It didn't break things open, but it got me to the door.
People say, 'When are you making this comeback?' I say, 'It's not a comeback, it's a record.' They say, 'Where have you been all these years?' I say, 'I've been making records.'
I always wanted to merge heavy metal with pop music, but I think that because I grew up more with pop, the Beatles and the Stones, I tended to affiliate myself with those projects.
There are a lot of cases where I'm using, if not an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar more as a rhythm instrument. Rather than blasting away, I use it to create more of an acoustic feel.
So everybody is trying to play like Eddie Van Halen. I think it's rubbish. I think Eddie's great, but everyone's trying to do what he does and it doesn't make for a lot of interesting music.
I'd always envisioned 'The Big Beat' leading off 'The Tale of the Tape' with the biggest drumbeat the rock world had ever heard. I knew I had something good… but I had no idea just how good.
I don't sit around going, 'What is the matter with me? What do I have to do to get a hit?' And I don't also sit home and listen to my record every day and get drunk and go, 'Wow, this is great.'
I don't feel any great need to dress in funny-looking clothes and be recognized as a star, nor do I get that much satisfaction out of hanging around all the main clubs so people can see who I am.
Following the example of Bruce Springsteen or Bob Seger, I wanted to have a band, a sound and a personality, yet maintain a singular position of being able to control and motivate the flow of things.
I read one article that called me the 'latest pretender to the Led Zeppelin throne.'… If I saw the guy I'd knock him out. Because that's not true - I'm not pretending anything. If my records sell, it's because of me.
I heard that I was off traveling around the world skiing in Argentina and things like that. I may have had a great life in somebody's mind, but all I was seeing was 9th Avenue while going from my house down to the studio in New York City.
We do things instinctively and not necessarily rationally. It's almost like we're being controlled by unseen forces, which is something I don't like. I've been making a real effort to try to find out what those forces are and get them out of my life.
Heavy metal to me implies a relentless, pounding, hitting-people-over-the-head music. Trend setters tend to dismiss it as basic and simple, but all the time that little trends keep coming and going, the Bob Segers, Bruce Springsteens and the Billy Squiers keep staying.
I think if you're going to a concert and spending $15 for a ticket for you and your girlfriend, then you're going to buy a T-shirt, and you end up spending close to $100 a night, what with gas in the car and anything else to get you in the spirit of things, I just think that people deserve their money's worth.
I'm older, wiser and richer, and I still have just as many headaches. It hasn't changed me drastically; certainly, not in terms of relationships. The people I'm close to, and there aren't many of them, have been close for a long time. And we know each other well enough to know it isn't the quantity of time you spend together, it's the quality.