Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Certainly for some time, people used to think of my solo career as somehow a side project to Porcupine Tree. No. If anything, the opposite would now have to be the case.
It's also ironic that in the old days of tape and tape hiss and vinyl records and surface noise, we were always trying to get records louder and louder to overcome that.
I never go back and listen to the recorded document. The thrill comes when the balance can be attained. Everyone in the room can have a shared, communal rock experience.
Richard Lloyd of Television is one of my favorite guitarists. His mentor was Jimi Hendrix when he was just 14. Jimi was always pounding everything he knew into that kid.
It's a cruel, heartless world out there in commercial rock 'n' roll, and when you take as much time off as we did, eight years, booking agents don't know if you'll draw.
I think the idea of having the show divided into two parts was that Tom Tom Club opened for Talking Heads in Europe, and it was the best we'd ever had as an opening act.
When there are no lyrics there are many parts of the imagination that can fill in the meanings of the music, so I strongly believe that it can be more powerful at times.
There's nothing cooler than someone explaining to you, as if it was easy, how they create antimatter. And they kept saying things like, "Well obviously you know that..."
Chris Jericho is a great guy. He's beyond hysterical. He's good people. They're really good. Chris wanted me to throw down a solo. He sent it to me and I knocked it out.
Social revolutions and group revolutions are good, and we need that, but we also need personal revolution - revolution within ourselves that change who we are as people.
The more I grow as an artist, the more I think I become like my father as an artist. The more I diversify, the more I become like my father, which is true to who he was.
Stuff used to get me really crazy, touring stuff. I used to hide. I hid from everybody. Back in '87, when things were so hectic, I'd run away. There was so much pressure.
I'm envious of people that can handle the press. No matter what I say or how articulately I say it, it always comes back to the same issues. And it's getting kind of old.
The Animals were a very separate and dissonant group at the time. We came from different backgrounds, different areas - we didn't even come from the same town, basically.
Over time, naturally, you lose your innocence from gaining knowledge. You can't be innocent forever, but there's something in innocence you need to regain to be creative.
When bands are on stage and they ask the crowd, "Are you having a good time?" what they're really saying is, "I just want a bit of reassurance - is everything all right?"
Fame put a lot of pressure on me in the Eighties and early Nineties - and I'm glad that I had the kind of makeup where I could come through it alive, keep myself in hand.
Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public's going to like, anyway.
Once in a while, the thumb that fits over the neck of the guitar kinda bothers me a little bit, but not that much yet. I figure in time I won't do much because of my age.
One second you're having the time of your life in front of all these people, and then you come backstage to the exact opposite - there's only lukewarm carrots back there.
When I started singing about my life and what I was going through, I felt more confident. It was my own life, I was being myself, I was telling people what was happening.
If journalists ask you again and again about the same bands, you'll end up saying you hate them just because you're so fed up with being asked all those stupid questions.
When we were making the record, I just decided, at the last second. I thought, "This song ["Ordinary World"] makes a lot of sense, being on the album [Revolution Radio]."
I march in the parade of liberty But as long as I love you I’m not free How long must I suffer such abuse Won’t you let me see you smile one time before I turn you loose?
I always thought the best kind of sunglasses are the motorcycle helmets with the black plastic masks on them. That way, nobody can recognize the back of your head either.
I've thought maybe of getting younger artists out doing stuff, like I used to do a lot of. I don't wanna do it day in and day out like I used to, but I still wanna do it.
I actually write a lot, but mostly just daily gibberish. I am a documentation addict: "I just peed. I walked down the hallway. I dropped my pencil. I just aged a minute."
I'm very good with technology, I always have been, and with machines in general. They seem not threatening like other people find them, but a source of fun and amusement.
One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn't if you knew better.
I want to make something that is breathtaking. Of course, you can't make something that is always breathtaking, or you would never be able to breathe. You would collapse.
The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad.
I got to realizing that I wanted to record, I wanted to experiment. And doing those same old songs the same old way - I said, 'I think it's time for me to have some fun.'
I can't wait to get off the bus and... go on stage and entertain people. That's my thing, that's what I love. I love doing it... I thank God I can make a living doing it.
The funny thing is, the music that I'm writing now is probably some of the most cutting edge we've ever done. The music that I'm thinking about putting on our next album.
All of our songs take these really big creative turns and twists throughout the process, so sometimes songs will start out as a melody or some musical chord progressions.
A lot of people deal with things that are bad. Once you've been through something, you grow from it and you take a lot in. You can always turn it into something positive.
I love the fact that people can relate to what I'm saying, even if it's not for the same subject I was writing about. That is the power of real music and real expression.
Care for all the animals they need our help Care for all the children stop thinking of ourselves. And if we work together to try for harmony Someday we will live in peace
No, every album is something like a snapshot. It only shows one moment in time. It shows what we feel and think right at that point in time, nothing more and nothing less
I used to be younger than my producers but now I'm older than my producers and I think that works for me, that works better cause you get a good kick up the ... everyday.
There's still a feeling that uncensored emotions make a good song. They don't. Pure emotion is just somebody screaming at you, or crying. It doesn't communicate anything.
Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.
If you are in a band or in any situation with other people there are obviously brilliant aspects to it, but there are also things that you start finding yourself tied to.
For a while there, our writing got really edgy... I've always written about experiences, so when your life gets a bit crazy, you start to write songs that are a bit edgy.
You've got this piece of wood and some wires, pickups and some strings. How somebody uses that configuration to make something memorable, that's what's interesting to me.
Being in a band is the best place I can think of to be as up-front as possible. If you let something stew, it'll grow into a mountain of nonsensical black mud in no time.
I'm blessed with a good pair of ears. That's how I fooled my piano teacher. I'd watch his fingers and I'd listen to it, and I just kind of basically learned it by myself.
Best advice that I ever got is to do whatever it takes to make myself happy, so that I'll be able to make others happy. If I'm not happy, I can't make other people happy.
I tend to lose myself in the moment. I’m not very good at holding back. I don’t know how to do this without feeling everything. My emotions are the tool I use to perform.
The Teenage Cancer Trust does incredible work supporting and caring for teenagers and young adults with cancer, and it's a cause that is really close to me and my family.