Bolin Quotes

#1. I can't see. I used to wear glasses off stage. Now I'm thinking of getting a pair of contract lenses.

Tommy Bolin

#2. A lot of times I wish I would have learned to read music, but I'm very impatient.

Tommy Bolin

#3. Once I was playing and moving around and I fell right on my back. Just straight on my back. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

Tommy Bolin

#4. The best money I made was panhandling.

Tommy Bolin

#5. Some people would ask: 'You are not the one who does the painting, or shot the work, how can it be your work?' But I was the one who chose which site we should use, and which assistant helps me to do the painting, or the shot.

Liu Bolin

#6. For me, practice isn't doing scales but doing things like writing, jamming with other people, or playing gigs.

Tommy Bolin

#7. I'll hear something in my head, then eventually play it. But it's a subconscious thing. Most of the time I really don't know what I'm playing.

Tommy Bolin

#8. I'd rather work than not.

Tommy Bolin

#9. I learned a lot about lead; you don't have to blow your cookies in the first bar. It is much harder to be simple that to be complicated during solos.

Tommy Bolin

#10. When I first colored my hair, my mother loved it. I got kicked out of school when I was 15, just for my hair.

Tommy Bolin

#11. If you're not having fun it's not worth doing.

Tommy Bolin

#12. How do you stop somebody from growing?

Tommy Bolin

#13. Lots of times it really doesn't matter what notes you play, but what notes come before and after a run.

Tommy Bolin

#14. I think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.

Tommy Bolin

#15. Blues teaches you to develop coherent solos, because the form you're playing over is so basic. You have to develop leads that go someplace.

Tommy Bolin

#16. I used to listen a lot to Rolling Stones records and play along with them when I was first starting. It's a good way to learn, jamming around basic music.

Tommy Bolin

#17. A lot of things just got distorted, like stories about each other. After the tour we never talked. I believe a band should be a band.

Tommy Bolin

#18. My family were all musicians. I really wasn't interested in school or anything.

Tommy Bolin

#19. I don't like English bands. They're too structured.

Tommy Bolin

#20. All the different styles I've played have really helped me as a guitarist and helped me develop my own way of playing.

Tommy Bolin

#21. When I got to LA and was with the James Gang, I got the opportunity to write a lot, to play in front of large audiences, make some money.

Tommy Bolin

#22. I want the new band to work together for a while, and when we're ready we'll invite every major record company to see us.

Tommy Bolin

#23. In one aspect, my works record the history of the development of Chinese society. Concern about the situation of Chinese reality is one important theme of my works. I am trying to ask, 'How does our society develop? What are the problems in our society? Where is our direction leading?'

Liu Bolin

#24. Right now I feel so inspired, it's hard to believe. I've written about 20 songs in the last two days. I'd gone about four months without writing a thing.

Tommy Bolin

#25. Each one chooses his or her path to come in contact with the external world. I chose to merge with the environment.

Liu Bolin

#26. When my body is covered and disappears, it's not about the relationship between me and the wall, but the relationship between me as an individual and those slogans which are used to fool the public.

Liu Bolin

#27. You're in direct contact with the music by having the strings under your fingers. It's not mechanical like a piano.

Tommy Bolin

#28. I blew my voice out and the doctor said, don't even talk for a week.

Tommy Bolin

#29. I just started off on my own by learning the regular chords then the barre chords. Then I'd lean the notes that would go with them.

Tommy Bolin

#30. When you come from the Midwest, you have a more open mind than if you come from the West Coast or the East Coast.

Tommy Bolin

#31. I started on drums when I was 13 and played them for two years. Then I went to guitar for a year, played keyboards for a year and a half, and went back to guitar.

Tommy Bolin

#32. I used to try and take things in leaps and bounds. Now I've realized it's got to be step by step.

Tommy Bolin

#33. When I'm with Purple, I'm totally with Purple; when I'm doing my thing, I'm totally doing my own thing.

Tommy Bolin

#34. I chose to camouflage my body into the environment because this way, people will pay more attention to the background's social property, and the meaning of my body disappeared in this environment as an individual.

Liu Bolin

#35. I replaced Walsh, I replaced Blackmore, now I just gotta be me.

Tommy Bolin

#36. I'll play drums a lot at home, and it will help my wrist action.

Tommy Bolin

#37. I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.

Tommy Bolin

#38. My first joint I smoked onstage in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I smoked my first joint live.

Tommy Bolin

#39. I have my own style, but it's different for each kind of music. There are certain little characteristic things every player has.

Tommy Bolin

#40. I can't do anything but play guitar.

Tommy Bolin