Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I just didn't like the idea of doing reunions, period. I could only see it as I'd just be going over the same old ground. I'm only years older and fatter and I'll just do an older, fatter version of me.
You know, who cares about seeing the girls when everybody wants to see the band. That's what's important, KISS is important. I think we look great, and the attitude is there, and I'm real happy with it.
I'm a fan of records you get and you listen to them from beginning to finish - records where everything is there for a purpose. There was never any filler on those records - it was all well planned out.
The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins.
I feel like I can be infinitely inspired because New York is huge. There's always a new street I can go to, or a billion new people who I haven't met that I could write about. New York is very humbling.
It's important for people not to feel like doing things that are immature, stuff you have to try out when you're a teenager, is bad, per se. Demonizing it is one of the reasons it becomes such an issue.
One of the nice things about a favorite pop song is that it's an unconditional truce on judgment and musical snobbery. You like the song because you just do, and there need not be any further criticism.
I'm most in my element on tour, with a gig that day, like today. I'm on the road where I am supposed to be. I will be where I'm supposed to be at nighttime, on stage, in front of people, doing my thing.
Everyone should have the right to go off and do their music or do their books. The people who are in the position to censor they're really not down to reality where that certain artists are coming from.
Americans are poorly served by their media, you know, for the war machine and propaganda machine and the global empire and they're poorly served by what they are being told is representative government.
I didn't know what to expect of real America. What shocked me was the diversity of it and how different every city is. But also just how polite and usually good-willed and optimistic most Americans are.
If I was a supervillain, I'd create this universal, cosmic rule where every time an old, shitty, right-wing white man says something unsavory about a young woman, he would just get the clap immediately.
I think the album 'Nothing Personal' is a lot more grittier and a lot more honest from a lyrical standpoint. Also, musically it's the most intricate and most thought-out record that we've ever recorded.
It always happens around beach resorts, a certain kind of money gravitates to the scene. The gold goes to the water. People love to wear it, show it off, roll with it. For me, I just find it disgusting.
A single is really quick, man. You can get it out, and in two months have it on your merch table. And albums can take a really long time. But when you get done with an album, it's a lot more fulfilling.
During the writing process, I tend not to listen to too much music. I obviously wear a lot of influences on my sleeve, but if I was listening to too many records, I would turn into too much of a monkey.
I think if you look back at the lead singers that left groups that didn't make it, you'll see that a lot of them were songwriters like Lionel Richie. I mean, they were able to control their own destiny.
I`m kind of like one of those people that picks up small and interesting bits of wood and doesn`t want to let go of them. Or, you know, I`m fascinated with the wrapper on a sardine can. A little cuckoo.
It's good to be young, but let's not kid ourselves/ It's better to pass on through those years and come out the other side/ With our hearts still beating/ Having stared down demons/ Come back breathing.
There is not one thing that's Beatle music. How can they talk about it like that? What is Beatle music? Walrus or Penny Lane? Which? It's too diverse: I Want to Hold Your Hand or Revolution Number Nine?
"I've always thought there was this underlying thing in Paul's "Get Back." When we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line "Get back to where you once belonged," he'd look at Yoko."
Yoko [Ono] was well into liberation before I met her. She'd had to fight her way through a man's world - the art world is completely dominated by men - so she was full of revolutionary zeal when we met.
I work out every day. Mostly it's free weights and cardio. I don't do that stuff where they throw logs at you, what's it called, cross-fit. None of that. Mainly it's just me in the gym, lifting weights.
Some of my most outrageous nights- I can only believe actually happened because of corroborating evidence. No wonder I'm famous for partying! The ultimate party- if it's any good- you can't remember it.
We have Common on one song called 'Don't Charge Me With the Crime,' which is one of my favorite songs. It's a story song. It didn't really happen to us. But it's definitely fun to have him on the track.
For us, our musical journey has just been a progression. We're not trying to grow up too fast or anything, and I'm saying that even coming from being married. For us, we're growing up with our audience.
I just don't like to get intimate. I don't want anyone to know what I feel and what I think, and if they can't get some kind of an idea of what sort of person I am through my music, then that's too bad.
I don't know how people can easily remain Christian if they get no fellowship. They may be able to do it intellectually, but part of the body of man is composed of spirit and parts of soul and of flesh.
My first memories of religion were being taken to Episcopal church. My father was Catholic, but my mother, I believe, was Episcopal. So I sort of veered off into the watered-down version of Catholicism.
I was a pizza delivery boy at the Pizza Oven in Canton. I wanted to get fired so bad, I actually wrecked the delivery car, but they wouldn't fire me because I was the only person they had working there.
That's what I've found through yoga: yoga helps us to sort of rewire the mind so that we can literally become more mindful of the conversation we're having on the back end, what we're telling ourselves.
It wasn't until the fourth or fifth Van Halen record that people would go, 'Wow! You're singing backgrounds on those records. That's not David Lee Roth.' And I go, 'Hell, no! That's not David Lee Roth.'
It's annoying when you've got a guitar and you're working on music and then you have to go and do the shopping or someone calls your mobile and you get distracted or you have to go out and do something.
Music should elevate you. You can be raised, or left stranded. You can't be raised all the time, in my experience. This might be a rare moment. You might just go up to that level but that's always good.
The Stones don't really need to do it for money, so they must get some kind of pleasure out of it. They're not like a group that's disbanded and gone away and made a comeback. They've always been there.
I feel really lucky to be in a band where the guys, for all the opportunities to do things that potentially would be good for them but detrimental to the group, that everybody stayed loyal to the whole.
When I was a kid and listening to Zeppelin and Guns N' Roses, if someone had told me that there would come a time, and I would play some of those songs with those people, I would never have believed it.
It's always a risky business inviting somebody on stage. You never know what they're going to do. I try to avoid letting people join me onstage because it can be very distracting, and overly theatrical.
When you're in a marriage, you can't leave just because you're arguing all the time. But it does stuff to you that you don't realise at first. It damages you, and you start thinking the worst of people.
Although I was able to study music with teachers, I never studied lyric writing. I read poetry, and I read other lyricists. But they were never writing in the style or the form that I was interested in.
I never saw myself as a spokesman for a generation. It was all a bit heavy for me. I saw myself as a songwriter and wrote for myself, which I still do, and I also wanted to communicate with my audience.
I was allowed a freedom as a baby boomer to do whatever I wanted to do. My parents were able to give their permission because they just felt, 'Why not?' I joined my first band and dropped out of school.
I was really influenced by a lot of Disney soundtracks, because that's what I used to watch all the time, and they always put music in it, which is why I tend to have popular melodies over harder beats.
When I read about Gram Parsons' dream of this Cosmic American Music when I was in my late teens, that stuck with me: that idea, that ambition, to draw off the roots of music but take it somewhere fresh.
By doing something positive in this world, you're helping people and the future. We're all trying to help the world... make it a better place to live. We're actually still changing the world, aren't we?
I meditate an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Once a year I go away for a long retreat. And overall, I just feel more comfortable in my own skin and less anxious, less sad, less fearful.
Some people hate the remixes, some people think it's cool. If you don't like that type of music and just like rock, you probably won't like it. But if you are open to more things, you just might dig it.
When The Byrds started country-rock, we had no idea there would be such a thing. We were just trying to honor the music. We started listening to country radio. We went to Nudie's and got cowboy clothes.
No one realized that I needed eyeglasses until I was 12 years old. My parents were writers, so I was around the sounds of words and developed a vocabulary with my sense of hearing. I play guitar by ear.
I'd much rather be in the expanse of the wilderness because it feels like part of my world. It's a unique perspective. You're this tiny speck in a huge environment, and it's nice to be reminded of that.