Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I never hated hip-hop. It became the new rock and roll. It became the biggest thing that Africans have ever done in the history of the Americas. Hip-hop put more black Americans on than anything before it. It fed more people. It allowed them to diversify into clothing lines and billion-dollar headphone companies.
I was the illegitimate child of the legitimate theater. I had no training. I came from downtown rock and roll, and when I came in and auditioned for the Broadway revival of 'Hair,' I had no eyebrows - kind of a Bowie-esque glimmer kid. And it was hard representing the flower power era when we were stone cold punks.
I just like country because a lot of those guys are from towns that I'm maybe from, for one. But also, I like how humble they are, and they're genuine people, I think. I'm not saying that rappers or rock and roll, those people, aren't. But I just feel like I get along with those guys because they're from small town.
Some have called we rock and roll performers who never retire 'troubadours.' I enjoy this misnomer immensely. While there are many differences between me and my distant predecessors in L'Occitane, I do believe there is a lineage that connects us of the last 70 years with those romantic singers of the High Middle Ages.
I don't think I'm turning back the clock by doing these old tunes. I love rock and roll and popular music. It's just that the spirits of the singers whose songs I do are living within me. That's why the songs come out in the voices of the original singers. I'm not doing imitations. That's the way they sound inside me.
I was born in 1963. So the '70s were my teenage years. As a teenager, I was into rock and roll - Bowie, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, even more progressive music like Genesis, and I was into a lot of British rock and roll. But I loved also American rock and roll. CCR, Jimmie Hendrix, The Doors, Patty Smith, and Bob Dylan.
I'm a street player, and all of my influences come from bands that I was listening to at the time when I was growing up. I was very impressed with guys like Mitch Mitchell. I liked rock and roll drummers, and I loved rhythm and blues guys like Clyde Stubblefield with James Brown. Man, that band blew me away all of the time.
I remember walking into a department store and you would hear an instrumental version of a Beatles song and it was usually kinda cheesy and very un-rock. Kenny G, for example, is a musician that I certainly dont want to sound like, but technically he is flawless but somehow the rock and roll aspect has been sucked out of it.
I recognize them for what they were. 'DeDe Dinah,' 'Ginger Bread,' come on. They're fun things. They're middle of the road. It wasn't really rock and roll. I don't know what it was, but it was something accepted and bought, and people still like them. When I reminiscence on stage, people respond. They really like those songs.
Being compared to Freddie Mercury is something I've come to terms with. I don't know that I'll ever successfully avoid the comparisons, as much as I might want to. Why bother, though? People hear what they want to hear because it makes them feel good and gives them a momentary pause from a loss rock and roll has felt for years.
People see me, and they see the suit, and they go: "you're not fooling anyone", they know I'm rock and roll through and through. But you know that old thing, live fast, die young? Not my way. Live fast, sure, live too bloody fast sometimes, but die young? Die old. That's the way- not orthodox, I don't live by "the rules" you know.
The music of the westerner comes from Africa, whether they like it or not. The majority of the instruments of the music, of the pop music, rock and roll, or R&B, hip hop, whatever it is, their roots trace back to Africa. So if you are black, white, yellow, or red, whatever you do, it doesn't matter, because your DNA is back in Africa.
I am singing in an operatic voice for the public, to bring something more to Rock and Roll. Because in a Rock and Roll performance, the singer talks to the public whereas in Opera the singer only talks to a character, inside a story. The public sees this as a picture, I want to transport this picture into the room where the public is.
I like wearing fitted jackets mixed with jeans, a button-down shirt and a tie. I like to keep the rock and roll feel but class it up a bit. As far as stage clothes, I prefer John Varvatos and All Saints. They have clothing that is really accessible for wearing every day as well as for wearing on stage. I also love J. Lindeberg's suits.
You gotta remember: we're musicians... we're just crazy people who can't get along sometimes. I've definitely come to the table with my knife in my pocket a couple of times; you know how it is. It's part of being human. Now add fame and money and all that rock and roll craziness to it - we're lucky we don't eat each other in this industry!
I am fascinated by the places that music comes from, like fife-and-drum blues from southern Mississippi or Cajun music out of Lafayette, Louisiana, shape-note singing, old harp singing from the mountains - I love that stuff. It's like the beginning of rock and roll: something comes down from the hills, and something comes up from the delta.
Half of the modern world goes back as far as Pearl Jam. The real historians go back to U2. But they need to go back further. They have to go back to the '50s and '60s, where things started. That's how you get to be your own personality, by studying the masters. Rock and roll was white kids trying to make black music and failing, gloriously!
I grew up on the lake and spent most of that time outdoors. As a musician, I travel widely around the country and talk to a lot of people, from all walks of life. That experience, combined with my rock and roll roots gives me something of an affinity for the underdog. In many ways, the environment is also the underdog - so, it's an easy fit.
To tell you the truth, the nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame totally surprised me. I had no idea that was coming. I know a lot of people like to say it's enough just to be nominated. But I've been nominated for so many things, I'd like to get this one. I think it's a long shot, considering I never had a No. 1 rock n' roll record.
You know, I guess there's enough information out there to support that I'm a crazy, wild dude and rock and roll and this, that and the other. And there's enough information to support that, you know, I'm a single father, that, you know, has been a pretty standup guy in his community and pretty private about that stuff. But it's on both sides.
If you're in the heyday of rock and roll and movies, and that's where I grew up. We didn't have to look for it. We didn't have to create angst. We didn't have to create desire. We didn't have to say, see we were screwed, my generation, because we wanted to be The Beatles or Elvis Presley. That ain't going to happen. So we always had this thing to reach for.
People always talk about good time rock and roll, Chuck Berry or whatever, like this liberating force for feeling good. But what I need in my life is to be liberated into feeling bad. Not sad. I have plenty of sad. What I need is a place where I can spray anger in sparks like a gnarled piece of electrical cable. Just be mad at stuff and soak in the helplessness.
If you can get them once, man, get them standing up when they should be sitting down, sweaty when they should be decorous, smile when they should be applauding politely-and I think you sort of switch on their brain, man, so that makes them say: 'Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything.' Whoooooo! It's life. That's what rock and roll is for, turn that switch on, and man, it can all be.
We are a band that stylistically crosses a lot of barriers and generational gaps. The heavier portion of the band, the modern music elements, the visual part of the band appeal to a younger audience. For an older audience, we have chops and great songs that are reminiscent of the things that were great about rock and roll when they enjoyed it. We're the kind of band that can cross those lines.
That one record changed everything for me. After Sgt. Pepper, it's the most influential record in the history of rock and roll. It affected Pink Floyd deeply, deeply, deeply. Philosophically, other albums may have been more important, like Lennon's first solo album. But sonically, the way the record's constructed, I think Music from Big Pink is fundamental to everything that happened after it.
There's something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It's really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it's all for one purpose, and there's no flies in the ointment, for a while. And nobody conducting, it's all up to you. It's really jazz__that's the big secret. Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.
I first met Jimmy Page in London in 1961, and he was listening to James Burton, Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup with Gene Vincent, as was I ... these were the rock and roll guys who really sparked our interest in the guitar, and later we delved into other things and went different directions ... during my time with Eric Clapton, we talked about what we'd listened to early on, and he was a huge fan of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis
Karl Agell sang for our Blind album which was our second best selling record. He's a great guy and as a matter of fact, before Mike, Woody and I really got going on touring on the old Animosity stuff, Karl & I did about a dozen shows performing the Blind album from start to finish. He's still a good friend of mine and is now in a band called Lead Foot that's more Rock and Roll but they're fantastic, kind of Thin Lizzy or MC5 sounding.
People will always have the desire to make rock and roll records, and they'll always have the desire to sell rock and roll records. Most of the people making these records do it because it is a business, and if someone says, "You can't do this", they won't complain. They'll just keep making records, but they'll get blander and blander. There'll still be rock and roll, but compared to what it really could be or ought to be, I don't think it'll be all that terrific.
Shall I tell you what rock and roll is, Johnno, from someone who doesn't perform, but observes? It's restless and rude. It's defiant and daring. It's a fist shaken at age. It's a voice that often screams out questions because the answers are always changing. The very young play it because they're searching for some way to express their anger or joy, their confusion and their dreams. Once in a while, and only once in a while, someone comes along who truly understands, who has the gift to transfer all those needs and emotions into music.