Top 94 Quotes About Playing In A Band
#1. When I first played New York, it was with James Brown at the Apollo, and I was playing in a band under the name The Valentinos. I remember Sam Cooke saying, 'I want you to go in there with James Brown. I couldn't be as hard on you as James Brown would be.' But we came out marching like soldiers.
Bobby Womack
#2. I like working with great talent, in every capacity. I have a rule of thumb, in any creative endeavor - whether I'm doing music and playing in a band, or working with producers, or directing - where I generally like to work with people who are smarter than me or better than me.
Malik Yoba
#3. When I first started playing in a band, before the Beatles, working bands played standards and they saved their rock material til the end of the night when they were really stretched out. It could be pretty lame.
Wayne Kramer
#4. I like being out front, doing what I do, but then I also like playing in a band too. I'd like to do stuff like I did with Deee-lite. I went out and played with them and they were the stars, that was cool.
Bootsy Collins
#5. There are lots of things I like about playing in a band, the things I can't do by myself you know.
Elliott Smith
#6. Now I'm grown up and playing in a band.
Ray Davies
#7. The photograph, the clothes, the sets - this was about 1974, and I started hanging out with my friend Richard Sold, who was playing in a band with Patti Smith.
Stephen Sprouse
#8. I grew up not really listening to guitar players. Especially when I was studying music, I was just interested in piano players and arrangers and composers; I came to playing in a band from the perspective of someone who never expected to play guitar in a band.
Daniel Rossen
#9. I wasn't, you know, Mr. Popular. I was somewhere in the middle ground. I was quite alternative, the things I liked to do. Skateboarding, at the time. Playing in a band as opposed to playing in the rugby team. You know, that kind of thing.
Iwan Rheon
#10. Writing a lyric is writing a lyric, whether it's sung or recited. Perhaps the question to ask should be, has playing in a band for three years affected you? The answer to that is you bet.
Cornelius Eady
#11. There was never going to be a right time for a band that was still recording and had health in its environment, had made a very good record and was playing well.
Peter Garrett
#12. Guitar gigs were everywhere in the '50s, and I started diddling around so I could keep working. Playing honky-tonk, simple stuff. I took a few gigs with an organ band that put me out front.
George Benson
#13. My mom was in a band for over 30 years, and my brother, sister, and I start taking classical piano lessons when we were three. She's really the reason why I'm still playing piano - she made me practice every day before school and made it a priority even when we didn't necessarily want it to be.
Tess Henley
#14. In the 80s there weren't so many bands around and nowadays there are a lot more bands around. I think sometimes there are too many bands. But there are a lot of interesting young bands around. They are not really playing the classic metal stuff, that's up to the old bands.
Udo Dirkschneider
#15. And if you are playing in several meters at once, there has to be a - not a rigid - but there definitely has to be a reference to a common pulse in the band.
Robert Fripp
#16. I started playing piano with a little band in high school. I was terrible. I thought I had absolutely no talent. I couldn't keep time. I only got into McGill, which was a lousy music school, because they were taking American music students.
Burt Bacharach
#17. One of my favorite things as an engineer is watching a band get comfortable in the studio and getting a great take. Like, they're playing the song, warming up, and then suddenly, the communication really happens and everybody's really in the song, and they nail it, and then that's the take.
J. Robbins
#18. When I was playing piano, it was like, 'I'm going to write a song using all the white keys.' My music director, who knew my jazz background, suggested I try big-band music, so we spent a year experimenting with it in concert, and the audience reaction was really good.
John Tesh
#19. Throughout my whole life, as a performer, I've never played with a band. I've always played alone, so I was never required to stay in rhythm or anything. So it was a real different experience for me to start playing with a band. There were so many basic things for me to learn.
Steve Martin
#20. I've played drums since I was 15. My sisters and I all played instruments. I kind of started with piano and then I actually played saxophone with a jazz band in middle school. So, any knowledge I had of jazz music was from playing alto-sax back then.
Miles Teller
#21. At the art college in Edinburgh someone arranged for some London groups to come up and play. I was in a supporting band, with Bernie Green I think. Derek Bailey was one of the visiting musicians. He seemed to like my playing and asked me to come down to London.
Jamie Muir
#22. It's an often-asked question, 'Why did all these spotty white English boys suddenly start playing blues in the '60s?' It was recognized as this kind of vibrant music and when I first started playing in a blues band I just wanted to bring it to a wider public who hadn't really heard it.
Steve Winwood
#23. I started playing music when I was around 10. I always wanted to be in a band, so I started out by playing drums.
Drake Bell
#24. I love to dance and I'd love to be saying goodbye to my friends while the band was playing and they were dancing ... I want them to remember I was a dancing man in my day.
Benjamin Spock
#25. Being a new band, I just can't think of a better way to get your name out to all of the Hard-Rock crowd than playing with twenty of the biggest Hard-Rock bands in the world.
Adam Rich
#26. I always wanted to play music, and always loved it. I saw a band come to school, when I was in elementary school, and wanted to play drums. I started playing drums at 11, and that's where it all started.
Patty Schemel
#27. My mum had this idea I was going to be this long-haired hippie playing guitar and bought me one when I was 13, but my little brother picked it up instead and was such a natural, he kept it! Io Echo is a band my brother now plays in; they're really good.
Liberty Ross
#28. Most of the stuff I learned to play, I learned in high school. I had a band in high school, a jazz-fusion thing, and I was the keyboard player. I was interested in how the instruments worked and the theory behind playing with them.
Brian McKnight
#29. There's been a lot of role reversal going on in the band. The roles people have been playing for a long time will always be there, but everybody's willing to try on different outfits.
Stone Gossard
#30. I met The Beatles while we were playing in Germany. We'd seen them in Liverpool, but they were a nothing little band then, just putting it together. In fact, they weren't really a band at all.
Ringo Starr
#31. If I amount to anything it'll be as part of a band. That's it. I'll be playing dive bars and shitty clubs, and I'll get high in the alleys and do lines in the bathrooms, and eventually I'll OD and that'll be that." I glance ad her. "Is that the life you want?
Jasinda Wilder
#32. Now I'm fortunate to have a good band in CA, and play many solo gigs as well. My point is that I stopped playing in bands and played solo for four years, to get back into the groove and pulse of writing and singing and who I am on stage.
Arthur Godfrey
#33. I think you can realise that a lot of people in bands - well - I guess you kinda wanna ... There's a lot less mystique in playing in a rock band today, than in the 60's or 70's. I don't think there's any bands that I can think of, that have this rock god myth that like Led Zeppelin had.
Chris Baio
#34. When I was a kid, I was playing in various bands - amateur bands, garage bands, weekend bands, you name it, around the area. At some point, I just wanted to try the whole 'Beatle tribute band' thing, so I found a local band that was doing that.
Steve Landes
#35. When we were first started we were doing a lot of Motown stuff, but actually playing it more in a rock way. Everybody in the band sang and we did a lot of harmonies.
Roy Wood
#36. Me and the Dap-Kings, the whole band is playing a wedding band in 'The Wolf of Wall Street.'
Sharon Jones
#37. I'm a bit multifaceted in the sense that I've got many more than one musical taste. If you think about it, I started out playing in a punk band and ended up doing electro-pop. That was more an accident than a plan.
Alison Moyet
#38. Years ago when I was in a cover band and we were playing dances, that was quite a different thing. You were there as part of an event. When you're a songwriter, you are the event. So it's a little bit of a different focus.
Andy Wilkinson
#39. I tried to sing 'What's Going On' with Amy Winehouse once at an old cinema in the West End. There was a funk band that had members of both of our bands playing in it, but it was the worst kind of place to sing bad karaoke because everyone there was an amazing singer or musician.
Jamie Cullum
#40. When I was 15, I was working for a radio band in Shreveport. Cliff Bruner, the hottest Texas fiddler of them all, was on the same package shows, playing for Jimmie Davis.
Johnny Gimble
#41. I've been making electronic music for twenty some odd years but, because I grew up playing in punk rock bands, when I started touring, I thought in order to be a viable touring musician I had to do it with a band. I would DJ or tour with a full rock band.
Moby
#42. My faith plays a big part in who I am: a Christian guy playing pop-rock music. I'm in a pop-rock band, not a Christian band.
Nick Jonas
#43. I also remember the second band I was in ever. We were called Hybrid. We got a show at this local street fair, and we were playing on the back of a flatbed truck. There was an ad in the paper, and it said that 'Hybird' is playing. I was so mad.
Frank Iero
#44. I loved playing the stuff we did in the Byrds. It was a good band. I was lucky to be in it.
Chris Hillman
#45. It's the place you would go if you wanted to buy a stereo system for under thirty-five dollars and didn't care if it sounded like the band was playing in a mailbox under water in a distant lake.
Bill Bryson
#46. When I'm playing 'Rock Band,' I'm like, 'Man, someday, later on in life when I'm a famous rock star ... ' Which gets a little harder to convince myself of as I reach middle age, but it still happens a lot.
Tim Schafer
#47. I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.
J. D. Souther
#48. Ironically, when I was playing in my first band, I would deliberately not write down any lyrics. I have a really good memory and I would just keep them in my head.
Craig Finn
#49. Dweezil and I are going on tour with the band probably starting in the middle of February for a month probably playing a few songs from my new record and then I'll continue on after that tour.
Lisa Loeb
#50. I was still doing the punk thing, but also playing in some indie bands, I had a less crazy hairstyle.
Tony Palermo
#51. At some point I was hanging around with the Butchies - a band I ended up playing with a lot - and it just brought out this thing in me ... and it felt very different from the Indigo Girls.
Amy Ray
#52. The stage show is, in some sense, highly theatrical. It's definitely not just a band in jeans playing rock and roll.
Amanda Palmer
#53. God's signature is not just in the cell, it's in all of creation. God is as necessary to the universe as a band is to music. Once the band stops playing, the music is over.
Frank Turek
#54. We were friends for a year before we started playing music together. We both think it's pretty important. Tyler's my friend before he's a guy in my band, and when we talk to each other about things, it comes from a friend standpoint, not just a business standpoint.
Josh Dun
#55. I like "Julie Gold's song "From a Distance". Her song reminds me of the world as seen through an observer's eye. Seen from a distance, we are people in the same band playing music for everyone. We are artists who play the most beautiful instruments in the world - life.
Ilchi Lee
#56. Ben was more improvisational, and relied less on methodology, and basically is a guitarist who switched to bass, whereas Jeff has a more traditional approach to playing bass in a band, and has a great sense of what his band sounds like, and we lock up nicely.
Matt Cameron
#57. I was in Hollis' band for eight years, playing drums. At one time we had Barry Beckett, Jimmy Johnson, David Hood - everybody but Roger Hawkins. We had a hell of a band.
Donnie Fritts
#58. There are a few things that I will hopefully be credited for as a pioneer. One is my four-mallet playing. Another one is the starting what was first called jazz rock in 1967 when I started my first band, later became jazz fusion by the 1970s.
Gary Burton
#59. I've accepted the fact that Limp Bizkit is my band, one that I'm a part of, a band that I've built from the beginning. It does me no good to be in somebody else's band playing their music, like Marilyn Manson or Korn. Being in Limp Bizkit allows me to be myself.
Wes Borland
#60. I do some solo, acoustic stuff, but I also like plugging in my electric guitar and playing loud with a band.
James Bay
#62. When I was about 12, I had my first paying gig - 8 dollars to play rhythm guitar in a polka band. Pretty soon, I ended up playing in all the bars within driving distance of Abbott, Texas.
Willie Nelson
#63. When you're used to playing with people, when you're in a band, then you're used to playing with each other. People nowadays aren't used to playing with each other because they don't have to.
Bootsy Collins
#64. To the U.S. and the world, I'm just known as some funny song and some funny music, some funny video guy. But in Korea I'm doing one of the biggest concerts; it's not a dance music concert. I'm playing with the band, so I change my every song to a rock song.
Psy
#65. James, that's a bad situation. I'm not saying it's not repairable, but it's pretty far. When you go from being in one of the best bands in the world to some cover band ... as far as I'm concerned, he was playing down at the pub.
Billy Corgan
#66. Around middle school I studied jazz guitar and ended up playing in a jazz band for a bit. But, after high school, I haven't even touched a guitar.
Mike Tucker
#67. I knew I wanted to be in music, but I didn't know my role, so I did everything from interning at Rolling Stone to writing heavy metal fanzines to playing in a high-school band, and I think all those things probably helped in a way.
Mark Ronson
#68. In the late summer of 1986, the band I had been in for five years stopped playing. Suddenly, I was on my own. This new state of bandlessness was, at first, traumatic. When your group breaks up, a lot of broken parts hit the ground.
Henry Rollins
#69. I know when I sit with my band members and we're playing back a song that we've done, I know that they're experiencing it in a completely different way and hearing stuff that they're alerted to because the way the interpret the world is through their ears. Mine is through my eyes.
Nick Cave
#70. The two basic social identities were Normal and Greaser; although a few sophisticated girls wore peace signs, hippies didn't exist, and while a seminal punk band, Iggy and the Stooges, was playing in nearby Ann Arbor, punk didn't exist yet, either.
Mary Gaitskill
#71. Every time I'm home, it's like a vacation, but I've been playing in bands since I was 11. I guess our goals were always small goals. It started off my goal was just to be in a band. Then it was to have a drummer that would show up.
Brittany Howard
#72. There was a band playing in my head, And I felt like getting high
Neil Young
#73. My strongest hope is for a cameo as a band playing in a club visited by the detectives on 'Law & Order: SVU' during the course of an investigation, maybe during sound check, or something, so they can force us to stop playing while they question the sound guy.
John Darnielle
#74. I used to be a drummer in a band, and I really loved playing the drums, so I look forward to the right opportunity to do that at some point. Maybe even on TV. Every single live performance I'm doing on TV, I want it to be different and unique.
Zedd
#75. The ensemble playing is as clean as a whistle. The band plays in tune and with dynamics. Also, there is some fine arranging and orchestrating going on here, and the soloists perform at top level.
Horace Silver
#76. Well, I've never been in a touring rock band, it was all just high school and college, playing toga parties in frat houses.
Alessandro Nivola
#77. For me, the best part of being in a band is playing shows, all the raw energy.
Chino Moreno
#78. I don't love playing new songs in a festival environment. Because when it comes to a festival a lot of people probably won't know your band really well at all so playing more familiar songs is a little more conducive in having a better show.
Jack Barakat
#79. Later in high school, I met Hillel Slovak, who was the original guitar player of the Chili Peppers, and we became really close. We had a band, and we didn't like the bass player, so I started playing bass, and I got a bass two weeks later.
Flea
#80. I love being in a band. I love playing with other human beings. I've never practiced drums unless there was another human being in the room.
Ringo Starr
#81. I was very shy when I was younger. But I did have a terrible temperament. I would get angry very quickly, but the rest of the time I was this big goofball, playing the drums in a band and making out with girls.
Jeremy Renner
#82. My favorite records are by bands where the musicians are all playing like themselves, but those personalities connect in an exciting way and create music that is one cohesive unit. It's not catchy like a pop song, but it's a really cool song.
Dylan Baldi
#83. When I left the band I said Look, I am ready to move on. I was interested in playing with some of the other people that I had bee a studio musician with.
John Sebastian
#84. Jay Z in many ways is a rock artist. In the sense that they've used hard rock, punk rock, psychedelic rock aesthetics and influences in their music. When you see Kanye West, he has a full band playing. Jay Z has a full band playing with Marshalls.
Ian Astbury
#85. I never want to be in that stage where a band ends up playing state fairs and casinos. I am not willing to go out shooting up Botox and eating corn dogs while judging pig contests.
Al Jourgensen
#86. I was kind of bored playing drums in a band. Which was depressing, because playing in the band was kind of a golden ticket.
J. Tillman
#87. I've been thinking about songwriting more in terms of playing it live, and how it will sound as a band.
Florence Welch
#88. Being in a band is far more than playing an instrument. It's surviving. It's getting an album together.
Josh Silver
#89. With how huge Yes was, especially in the '70s and '80s, as a touring band and actually playing at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia to 130,000 people, which is the biggest-paying show ever in rock history, you would think we'd done enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Chris Squire
#90. I've always believed, in my heart of hearts, that it would be a better show if, when I crossed over to the desk, the band kept playing for an hour and I danced in a cage.
Conan O'Brien
#91. I was playing with the Aquabats, and then I quit to join a band called Suicide Machine in Detroit.
Travis Barker
#92. My grammar school graduating class in 1941 had a little party for 13 or 14 year-old kids. [Trumpeter] King Kolax's band played for the party and Gene Ammons was playing tenor saxophone with the band. And that's when I said, "That's it!" Just like that, tunnelvision ever since.
Johnny Griffin
#93. I was in a Led Zeppelin cover band in high school, and my highlight was playing "Misty Mountain Hop" at a coffee house in Wayne, Pennsylvania. I wasn't allowed to play any instruments; I could only be the singer because I was a girl.
Victoria Legrand
#94. I've always sung in choirs and acapella groups, but when I was in college, I finally started writing songs and playing with a band, and that ignited a desire to do it full time and pour everything I had into it.
Rachel Platten
