Michael Azerrad Quotes

#1. I just wanted to tell the story of a bunch of musicians who had never had their story told before. There's no preaching or theorizing.

Michael Azerrad

#2. For Nirvana, putting out their first major-label record was like getting into a new car. But the runaway success was like suddenly discovering that the car was a Ferrari and the accelerator pedal was Krazy Glued to the floorboard.

Michael Azerrad

#3. I have this theory, bands with enigmatic lyrics attract crazies.

Michael Azerrad

#4. I would roll out of bed and immediately start working, and keep working until it was so late at night that I couldn't stay awake anymore. Then I'd go to sleep and wake up the next morning and do the same thing all over again. I did that every day for three years.

Michael Azerrad

#5. I'm not sure I ever try to make a case for the music. I mean, sometimes the music isn't even that good. I just tell the band's stories; if I describe the music, it's to explain how it moved the overall story along.

Michael Azerrad

#6. People shared everything: information, equipment, their floors, whatever. There was strength in unity.

Michael Azerrad

#7. Now that the generation that grew up on '80s indie-rock has attained influential positions in the culture, that music is the new yardstick. And that will shift yet again some day.

Michael Azerrad

#8. Back in the day, in '91 or so, I tried to interview Fugazi for Rolling Stone, which the band felt stood for everything they detested about corporate infiltration of music. They said, 'We'll do the interview if you give us a million dollars of cash in a suitcase.' Which was their way of saying no.

Michael Azerrad

#9. I really believe in the power of music - and I mean literally the power of musical tones - to rearrange the way you can think.

Michael Azerrad

#10. You didn't have to be a huge rock star; you just had to do well enough to continue doing what you wanted to do. It wasn't about hitting the jackpot, it was about sustainability.

Michael Azerrad

#11. Ten percent of the American population thinks that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Those are the people that have not learned the skill of filtering information from the vast barrage of inaccurate information that we're all faced with everyday. I think that's a very 21st century skill.

Michael Azerrad

#12. The American indie underground made music for like-minded people who thought for themselves. Thinking for yourself is intrinsically subversive.

Michael Azerrad

#13. In eras past, mainstream culture was blandly, blindly complacent, so underground music was angry and dissatisfied. But now, mainstream culture isn't complacent, it's stupid and angry; underground culture reacts by becoming smarter, more serene. That's not wimpy - it's powerful and productive.

Michael Azerrad

#14. Just as not all popular albums are wonderful, not all wonderful albums are popular.

Michael Azerrad

#15. Rock'n'roll is a teenage sport, meant to be played by teenagers of all ages
they could be 15, 25 or 35. It all boils down to whether they've got the love in their hearts, that beautiful teenage spirit ... -Calvin Johnson

Michael Azerrad

#16. The most surprising and rewarding chapter to write was the Butthole Surfers chapter. I'd always thought of them as a bunch of drug-addled reprobates - which maybe they were - but it turned out to be more complicated than that.

Michael Azerrad

#17. There's no law that says anybody has to do an interview.

Michael Azerrad

#18. There's a whole apparatus for indie bands now, but back in the eighties it was just getting built. The early people really took it on the chin.

Michael Azerrad

#19. I'll leave it to other people to evaluate the legacy of my book, but I'm very moved when musicians tell me that they've been inspired by my book.

Michael Azerrad

#20. Bon Jovi's trick is to use heavy-metal chords and still sound absolutely safe. Rock & roll used to be rebellion disguised as commercialism; now so much of it is commercialism disguised as rebellion.

Michael Azerrad

#21. People didn't get to see how other towns interpreted the underground ethos, and so they developed their own unique versions of it.

Michael Azerrad

#22. Critics and fans use the music of their youth as reference points. For years, people seriously wondered who "the next Beatles" were going to be, and classic rock bands were the de facto yardstick for rock quality.

Michael Azerrad

#23. Nine Inch Nails' sound is dominated by clanging synths and sardonic, shrieking vocals.

Michael Azerrad

#24. As a journalist, I'm not supposed to be the subject, but as an author, I'm fair game - another ingredient in the media soup.

Michael Azerrad

#25. Naturally, no one knows more about music than musicians. They talk about their own work all the time, but they rarely get to talk about other people's music.

Michael Azerrad