Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar means something special, you're bound to do great things with it.
When you're open to something it's like being a beacon, and you attract it. From the first time I heard the chanting Hare Krishna, it was like a door opened somewhere in my subconscious, maybe from some previous life.
The boys and girls in the clique. The awful names that they stick. You're never gonna fit in much kid, but it you're troubled and hurt, what you've got under your shirt will make them pay for the things that they did!
What if Americans were all judged by the actions of the Bush administration and people did not know the truth? That America is full of people who are, at present, poorly represented and poorly catered to by the media.
I think there is something very interesting about people who live day to day in an environment where they could get taken out by a wild animal. There has to be some kind respect that is derived from that relationship.
When I was working on 'Night Falls Over Kortedala,' I was listening a lot to 'Graceland,' the Paul Simon record. I really got into the lyrics on that album. The opening line is so brilliant, the way he sets the scene.
You carry all these hurts and breakups with you forever. But there is this sort of joyful realization that the things that caused you pain were real. There is something beautiful and invigorating in holding onto that.
Rastafari means to live in nature, to see the Creator in the wind, sea and storm. Other religions pointed to the sky, and while we were looking in the sky, they dug up all the gold and diamonds and went away with them
The Yardbirds sort of disbanded, and I was disappointed because I thought what we were doing was really good. I thought we were really onto something. I thought I was really onto something with these ideas that I had.
When I'm preforming a lot I'm aching to get back in the studio but I love live performance. I love trying to think on my feet and be spontaneous. I like doing that in a live show and I do the same thing in the studio.
When I was 18, there were 50 people that I called my friends. Today, there are only three, but I'm glad to have those three. If you have three people that you can really call your friends, then you truly have it made.
I do sometimes think what outfit will make me happy. It's one of those self-care things. If I don't have time to do yoga in the morning, then I have a certain sweater/shirt combination that makes me feel put together.
I never sleep alone. If there is no one to sleep next to, I'll sleep next to a stuffed animal. It makes me feel secure and safe. It's a little embarrassing to admit it; I'm an old man now. It's important to me though.
It's good to be playing one and a half hour again. In the States we played like an hour and when you got onstage it felt like all of a sudden you are already done your set. But now, it feels like we are touring again.
I spend a lot of time in our kitchen. I find it the cosiest, friendliest place in the house. It's not something my American upbringing prepared me for, but now that I live in England, it's become very important to me.
It's fun to be in a small club and to be able to look somebody right in the eye and watch them just freak. Then it's fun to be in front of thousands of people and watch a couple of hundred freaking out of their minds.
I still get excited performing live. When you see the immediate reaction from a crowd, its like being a theater performer, its something you can't get from being a writer or being an ad man ... its almost ritualistic.
In the beginning, if you look at those early label albums of the Chicks, we didn't write all that much. We had an A&R person and they were getting songs from publishers, listening to hours and hours of cassette tapes.
I still felt we had some really good music on that record, but it's a shame that we couldn't make it better. And the tour was a total mess. We just had no life, no energy, and I felt we were going through the motions.
I was pretty sheltered growing up. I just started getting into heavier music with the Tooth & Nail/Solid State era, which really kind of brought this whole thing to life for me, so I am really thankful for that label.
You are talking to a man who can only play a plastic keyboard. Give me anything weighted and I've had it. I haven't got the strength in my fingers to push them down. So I don't get a lot of expression on the keyboard.
I can assume that the younger generations will no longer know what vinyl was. Maybe some kids will take their CD back to the shop, telling the shop owner they have a faulty disc and if they could please get a new one.
I think I've gradually learned to become more of a frontman than I was initially. I mean, when I first started, especially playing with Alter Bridge, you know, I really considered myself more a guitar player who sang.
For a while we were chasing a book by Graham Greene to do Brighton Rock as a musical. We didn't get the rights, so we decided to create something from scratch, with Jonathan. By that time we were big fans of his work.
I never collected cars as a financial thing; I wanted to go racing, so I chose the cars I wanted to go racing with. Like the Ferrari 250 GTO. I bought it because it absolutely fulfilled everything I wanted from a car.
I am the outcast come home to roost and the eggs of tomorrow are incubating in my fame. You hate me, you love me, you made me, and now I am in you. I am like that disease brewing in your loins and I think you like it.
If you're an artist, you do what you do, and in a way, you don't even control the core essence of what you do. You try to mold it and develop a style, but the core elements of what you do are just part of who you are.
I think people are just really disappointed, disappointed with Blair as well, who's just like Bush's lapdog. I think everyone's just disillusioned with politics in our country, and it must be the same in your country.
Many things have been said about what happened, but I don't know either. Maybe someday. One thing I'm sure of is that all the things that have happened to me, good and bad, happy and sad, have made me what I am today.
I really think that life isn't logical and life isn't always meaningful. I'm just trying to go into that zone without being too random, and just trying to create some new logic [in moviemaking] that feels like dreams.
To add an AC outlet, for example, you just drill a circular hole in the wall, tap into the wiring, add the outlet and you're set. If you don't want it, pull it out and plaster over it with more earth to seal the hole.
I'm quite honored by it. They [people] tell me that , 'If it hadn't of been for you, I wouldn't have played drums.' Hey, don't blame me, I was just up there doing my stuff. So no, I never take it as any real pressure.
Page and I get offered everything: women, little boys, cocaine, the lot, to just go back and do that again. I don't think it would be a good idea at all. [But] I reserve judgment to change my mind in five years' time.
Give a Little Bit has a wonderful message and makes people light up and I get them to sing with me. It really has a message that is very eternal and is needed even more today than it was when I wrote it when I was 19.
I always used to look at books and wonder how anybody could come up with so many words. But my divorce and then falling in love with somebody else has released in me an ability to write in other ways apart from songs.
The environment is rarely put on tape, or if it is, it's so abstract that most people never realize it. They just don't know what it means. But if you can show it to them, then that's what becomes the main instrument.
My grandfather was Orthodox, and he was religious, but neither of my parents were. Of course, as they got older, it seems like they get more religious the older they get, even though they're still not practicing Jews.
In the '90s, the radio was still alive with all different kinds of points of view, and I think that's why people are longing for that time. It was the first time that alternative music broke through to the mainstream.
As the woodpecker taps in a spiral quest From the root to the top of the tree, Then flies to another tree, So have I bored into life to find what lay therein, And now it is time to die, And I will fly to another tree.
I've tended to avoid meeting my heroes. They aren't necessarily the nicest people anyway. The exception was George Harrison, one of the loveliest men I've ever met. He lent me his home studio to make Hormonally Yours.
Self-discovery is so important in identity processing: who you hang out with, what clothes you wear, what shows you see. As a kid, I found out about things through friends. I would go to hardcore shows with 50 people.
My health is wonderful. I work out. I'm working. Playing music. I have a beautiful wife, a nice home, a nice car, I got money in the bank. I got three beautiful dogs that love me. Like I said, I'm blessed. I survived.
When we try and blend the two together, the songwriting and the touring like we did before, it doesn't really work. We tend to become very focused on what we are doing. And we tend to be a little bit one-track-minded.
I'm such a lucky guy. I've been able to make my own decisions for my own life for the last fifty years...or sixty ... well maybe not sixty. Even though I think I was making my own decisions at the tender age of eight.
Sell. Don't apologize for it and don't be afraid to beg with a positive, up-beat attitude. Tell prospects you want their business and you will kick ass once you've earned it. Have no shame, pride doesn't pay the rent.
Some amazing records have this power to leave you with inspiration; you're left with the urge to write something. And some records are totally overwhelming, because they are so good, they burn the bridges behind them.
Slayer fans are unforgiving. Early on in the career, if something changes, it's accepted. But 30 years down the road, in my opinion, they would rather see us do a three-piece than even try to replace Jeff, in a sense.
A lot of bands are influenced by other bands, and that informs their songwriting for sure. It definitely informs my songwriting, too. But it's more about not thinking about it, and if it comes out of you, it's better.
Usually, whatever's in front of me is what I'm focused on and it's 100% on that and then I kind of move from one thing to the next. Like, if I go to a restaurant and I order food, I always just eat one thing at a time.
I don't do much recording anymore, but before I really stopped, I was glad to get five, five cent a record. That's why when I see people today and they complain about what they get, and I picked cotton for $2.50 a day.