Quotes About Rock Bands

#1. Most people get into bands for three very simple rock and roll reasons: to get laid, to get fame, and to get rich.

Bob Geldof

#2. A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences.

Steve Albini

#3. All of the punk-rock bands of the era would come in and play, and my job on Punk Rock Night was that I would go into the slam pit, and ... I was 24 or 25, and I'd slam dance in the pit.

William Forsythe

#4. Me personally, I side more with punk rock bands. I grew up with The Misfits, The Dead Boys, The Damned, Dropkick Murphys, and early AFI. That was the stuff that really got me into music. Song writing wise, bands like Alkaline Trio were very important to me for beginning to write songs.

Andy Biersack

#5. The world is full of bands and bullshit, and if I'm doing a stupid art project like rock 'n' roll then I want to spare my audience as much as possible.

Ariel Pink

#6. I love rock and roll. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong decade because I love Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and ... those are my bands.

Marisa Miller

#7. I do think that some bands seem to be dabbling in the rock-hip-hop world and are not necessarily serious about it.

Fred Durst

#8. I can play the trumpet. Before I became an actor, I wanted to be the next Louis Armstrong. I started young and got to grade seven. When I turned 13, everyone started whipping out guitars, looking cool and joining rock bands, so I stopped playing.

Douglas Booth

#9. It might sound chauvinistic, but there is a sad reality in rock music: Bands who depend on support from females inevitably crash and burn.

Chuck Klosterman

#10. I think some of the musicians are more like punk rock musicians. It's like an art as opposed to being a musician. It's definitely more radical psychedelic bands, more than anything.

Wayne Coyne

#11. My roots and Victor's are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they're tremendously exciting players.

Chico Hamilton

#12. I thought that Christianity was undergoing a bit of a comeback?' 'Well, if you're into rock bands and happy-clappy Christianity, I suppose it is

K.M. Ashman

#13. I loved hard-rock bands, and I loved songwriters who told stories.

Art Alexakis

#14. Barry White, Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield are big influences for me. But I'm also a metal head. I was in a bunch of punk rock bands. The Bee Gees, hip-hop and the Beach Boys are just as much of an influence on me as Smokey.

Mayer Hawthorne

#15. I definitely make an effort to work on different styles of music: not working on too many post-rock bands, or too many heavy bands, or too many folk bands, or just whatever. I have no desire to be known as somebody that just works on a single style of music and would rather avoid it, actually.

John Congleton

#16. You just don't get it, do you, man?' I said. 'In the '80s if you were in a rock band, when you asked for a hummer, you got a hummer.'
Dr. Roberts nodded and wrote something down on his pad. Maybe it was 'motherfucker'.

Stephen Pearcy

#17. I drummed in some rock bands. I asked for a drum kit when I was 15 and my parents were kind enough to buy me one and I just started playing with my buddies who played guitar.

Miles Teller

#18. Knowing so many people like myself who are singers and in traveling bands, the people you're in a relationship with feel slighted because they feel you're giving all your energy to your fans, and there's a lot of truth to that.

Kid Rock

#19. Because you have things like 'American Idol' and you've got radio stations that play music made entirely by computers, it's easy to forget there are bands with actual people playing actual instruments that rock.

Dave Grohl

#20. I didn't grow up with indie rock - I mean, I listened to bands that are considered indie rock, but I think that term is dead and uninteresting.

Justin Vernon

#21. I played in garage bands and rock and roll bands when I was in junior high and high school and saw some of the great talents of all time in the local area where I lived.

David Cassidy

#22. I began with dance, doing ballet at 3, then tap, jazz, modern. Then I sang in church choirs, learned how to play clarinet and drums, sang with rock bands and only then did I get into musical theatre.

Samantha Barks

#23. Everybody needs some real rock in their lives ... whether it's bands like ourselves, Aerosmith or Stones ... or new bands like Five Finger Death Punch, Avenged Sevenfold ... it's out there.

Nikki Sixx

#24. Once I got into punk rock, I started mail-ordering albums, because a lot of the record stores in my area didn't carry the punk bands from England or Sweden or Chicago or Los Angeles

Dave Grohl

#25. People are wrong when they say that everything should be more diverse, even, say, rock bands. It's an error, an overgeneralization.

Jonathan Haidt

#26. I don't want to pooh-pooh modern pop. I appreciate that as well, but my personal favorite kind of music is guitar-based rock. I like grunge and garage bands and alternative music, but that's more my personal taste.

Al Yankovic

#27. I'm 33 ... before AC/DC I've played in a lot of bands in Australia. You're never too old to rock and roll.

Bon Scott

#28. Few bands in hard rock history have been so adept at balancing the awesome and trivial as Van Halen in their prime.

Chuck Eddy

#29. I understand the rock star deal having been one and still going out strapping my guitar on and performing. Now, I probably do 30 or 40 dates a year and I get to relive how I felt at 19 when I played in some really bad bands.

David Cassidy

#30. And rock being a male-dominated, testosterone-driven place that I've been in the eye of the hurricane now for several years, I realized that it can be a place that can perpetuate homophobic behavior unless it's addressed by bands like us.

Tim McIlrath

#31. Punk rock and metal has always been a home to me, it's where I cut my teeth; and those are the friends that I have, and the bands that I love.

John Dyer Baizley

#32. Rock bands are a lot like football teams: If a guy is on drugs and messes up, get someone else who's proud to wear the uniform and be part of the team.

Gene Simmons

#33. There's a great rock and roll scene in Sweden. There are many smaller bands like ourselves that are great. Oh yes, there's a band called Eggstone, they're really good, and a band called the Soundtrack Of Our Lives, which is excellent.

Nina Persson

#34. You know, with bands like Kiss back out on the road and Aerosmith coming out, we are going to be a band like that, in the sense that it's a big rock band.

Steve Brown

#35. There's always gonna be rock n' roll bands, there's always gonna be kids that love rock n' roll records, and there will always be rock n' roll.

Dave Grohl

#36. I have my small little cult following, I play random shows from house parties to opening up for rock bands.

Girl Talk

#37. It was difficult to get into my friends' rock bands when I was a teenager. They somehow didn't see the need for an accordion player. That's when I realized that I had to find my own path in life.

Al Yankovic

#38. When I was in college in Philly, there was a lot of post-punks ... hardcore ... like, rock. Sixties, retro, proto-Strokes kind of bands.

Tim Heidecker

#39. Keith Richards on change - "It's gotta go up and down. Otherwise, you won't know the difference. It would be just a bland, straight line, like lookin' at a heart machine. And when that straight line happens, baby, you're dead.

Jessica Pallington West

#40. Rock and roll and swing never quite mixed. Rock and roll came in and just blew everything out of the water. Big bands were dead.

Brian Setzer

#41. I wasn't in a lot of rock and roll bands. I was in jug bands and things when I was in school.

Loudon Wainwright III

#42. It's funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: 'So, what does it take to make it?' Well, first explain to me what you mean by 'making it': Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?

Eddie Van Halen

#43. We just wanted to get as far away from the rap-rock scene as possible, because its been done and other bands do it better than us anyway.

Adam Rich

#44. With a pop album you can listen to one or two songs from it, but a music album is really an experience. It's not something a whole lot of rock bands do.

Dylan Baldi

#45. I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.

Michael Franti

#46. The music industry is not what it used to be. Being in a good band is great, and I've been lucky to be in great bands. I've done solo stuff, and that's been great. I also produce rock bands and I do co-writes, where I write with different singers in bands and songwriters.

James Iha

#47. I'm fascinated with the attitude of younger rock bands, even ones that are making money at it. I don't ever hear them talk about it as a "career." It almost makes me think there isn't even a music industry anymore, like an atom bomb fell and it was just eradicated forever.

Travis Morrison

#48. I was in lots of dodgy bands growing up and I always fancied myself in a band. But, you know, I was rubbish at writing music. So maybe one day I'll play a rock star, or punk rocker.

Gemma Arterton

#49. The bands and the roadies, love 'em and leave 'em. It's pleasure to try 'em, but trouble to keep 'em.

Joni Mitchell

#50. Bands like R.E.M. and even The Replacements, during that initial wave of college rock, would sell 40, 50, 100,000 copies of a record, and that would be seen as extremely successful - and definitely enough to keep doing more.

Adam Schlesinger

#51. There's no leader of this band, and there never will be. That's the key. You can't control how the public perceives you-people see rock'n'roll bands as the guitar player and the singer.

Shannon Hoon

#52. I always thought of indie-rock as being rock music by bands that were on independent labels, and that's a great thing.

Britt Daniel

#53. All the outliers we've looked at so far were the beneficiaries of some kind of unusual opportunity. Lucky breaks don't seem like the exception with software billionaires and rock bands and star athletes. They seem like the rule.

Malcolm Gladwell

#54. But, then again, I wouldn't call myself an indie-rock supporter even if there are some really good bands out there and there will always be some real good new bands.

Stephen Malkmus

#55. All I really wanted to do was make an album that was going to be just back to what I like to do ... And it was a coincidence that these new bands, this new wave of bands, were doing Alice and Iggy rock.

Alice Cooper

#56. I really like LIMP BIZKIT. I mean, I've said it for years - I don't know if anyone actually hears it - but I think LIMP BIZKIT are an awesome band. In terms of the rap-rock bands, or ANY bands out there, I think they really are truly among the best.

Lars Ulrich

#57. I'd say that my musical influences are anywhere from pop-rock electronica, new age and classical. But I think that specifically, bands - I love Jem, I love Sigur Ross, I love David Gray, I love Elliot Smith ... a lot of different people. But I don't find lyrical inspiration from anybody.

Emmy Rossum

#58. When I return to the writing process after being away from it for a while, the first part of it always is being honest with myself: What am I into right now? Is it rock bands and guitars, is it noise, is it dance beats and electronics? Is it space, is it clutter?

Trent Reznor

#59. I actually had a really nice guitar as a teenager. I took jazz guitar, so my mom bought me this probably $1,600 guitar. But I got really into garage rock and local bands, and I noticed they played really crappy guitars. So I thought, 'Hey, I should get a crappy guitar, too!'

Mac DeMarco

#60. In high school I wanted to be a rock star and was in a lot of bands.

Adam Sandler

#61. It seems like bands have stopped making timeless, great rock albums like they did back in the day.

Jonathan Davis

#62. Don't ask me why I obsessively look to rock 'n' roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess it's just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.

Lester Bangs

#63. There are few people who define the word, 'rock star' better than U2's Bono. He's revered the world over not just for leading one of the biggest bands ever, but for his very public work on behalf of the underprivileged in Africa.

Daryn Kagan

#64. The Rolling Stones were one of the best bands ever, and 'Sticky Fingers' is one of the best rock albums I've ever heard.

Buzz Osborne

#65. I got to be about 13 and everyone started playing guitars and being in rock bands. There was no place for me with my trumpet and I wasn't cool anymore. Although now if I played the trumpet it would be the coolest thing in the world.

Douglas Booth

#66. To me, the 90's signaled the end of glam rock, the beginning of gangsta rap, and hopefully the beginning and end of boy bands.

Shane West

#67. Rock 'n' roll accepted me and paid me, even though I loved the big bands ... I went that way because I wanted a home of my own. I had a family. I had to raise them. Let's don't leave out the economics. No way.

Chuck Berry

#68. I had 12 years of classical music as a child, playing piano competitions as a teenager, playing in blues bands and rock 'n' roll bands, country and jazz bands. I played in about any situation.

Ronnie Milsap

#69. The thing about rock is that people are not just interested in bands because of where they want to go. It's where they want to escape from that matters.

Colin Greenwood

#70. I started playing guitar at, like, 12 or 13 and just rock bands mostly. I had a punk rock band and hard core bands and all that.

Oscar Isaac

#71. For music, I always just played music myself - and, I had rock bands and wrote songs and put bands together that were loud, but not especially good. That was sort of the place music had in my career.

Michael Cerveris

#72. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke - the fact that Madonna is in before Rush and Kiss. Those two bands have influenced so many groups and people other than in metal.

Corey Taylor

#73. I played in school jazz bands and tried to start rock bands, but nobody was interested.

Courtney Barnett

#74. I know it's financially lucrative to go out on my own, but I don't like it. It's really hard work, just the performance aspect. I like people who look like they've been together for too long and sound like they've been together too long. I like rock n' roll bands.

Jason Isbell

#75. I don't have no favorite rock bands. I'm a fan of rock music though.

DJ Khaled

#76. I play and I've played in heavy bands, but when I write for myself, I don't particularly feel like writing huge rock riffs. It just doesn't work for me and my voice.

James Iha

#77. By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum.

Steve Albini

#78. The Rock'n'Blues Fest is my kind of festival series! It's always great playing shows with my brother and, add to that, all the other great artists and their bands and this should make for one historic round of concerts.

Johnny Winter

#79. When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that's not something I could do.

David Byrne

#80. We have an electronic vein we have tapped and applied it to a rock setting like tons of bands out there.

Mike Lowry

#81. The bands that wrote the big, heroic rock songs - I really wanted to make a record like that.

Sheryl Crow

#82. There's a difference between music that's original and music that's retro. A lot of bands now are kind of retro 70s whether it's Kraut-rock or ... I've heard people suggest that we're kind of retro 80s.

Bill Orcutt

#83. Through the history of rock n' roll, you see lots of bands making the mistake of putting on the tights when they get to arenas. Don't do that.

Patrick Carney

#84. I'm like a middle-aged person; when my friends go on about modern bands, I don't know what they are talking about. I'm into rock n' roll, like Jimi Hendrix. Not so much because of my parents, who used to play a lot of Nina Simone and older blues, but my brother and sister.

Georgia May Jagger

#85. A lot of rock bands are truly a legend in their own minds.

David Lee Roth

#86. I'm finding it hard to listen to other rock bands. It's been hard for me for a long time, but now I can't listen to any new bands at all.

Matt Tong

#87. I was trained at classical piano as a youngster back in PA. To rebel, I bought a drum set and played in some rock & roll bands. In college I picked up a guitar and became obsessed with practicing which led to playing guitar in indie rock bands in the mid 90's. Which led me to Los Angeles.

Jeff Cardoni

#88. Getting on stage, for me, was a huge thing when I first started. And back in high school, everyone was in rock bands and I was a singer/songwriter. It just seems kind of lame.

Tyler Hilton

#89. The '60s was a magical time in the music business. So much creativity and talent. I think a lot of it came from the fact that we had grown up before rock n' roll. We listened to all the great songwriters and big bands, songs with great lyrics and melodies. I think that really influenced everybody.

Frankie Valli

#90. Australia is so entrenched in rock n'roll and bands, and that's just the way Australia is.

Ricki-Lee Coulter

#91. Maybe if they start playing new rock bands videos, then maybe but there is no point in a guy like me spending 250 grand for a video that no one is ever going to see.

Sebastian Bach

#92. When I first got famous, Greg Dulli was also just starting to cook with the Afghan Whigs, and because of the MTV awards I met Dave Grohl and Nirvana and all these rock and roll bands. So I had experience with what it was like when people were taking off at that time.

Denis Leary

#93. A lot of punk rock. I listen to various stuff just cuz my friends now listen to a lot of different bands. I listen to a lot of underground stuff like jungle music.

Cassie Steele

#94. When I go into rehearsal rooms and meet with bands, they're genuinely excited to be with me because of what I've done as an artist, not because of anything else. There's that whole celebrity rock star thing, and artists are into artists who have been able to achieve success their way.

Nikki Sixx

#95. I think music is so diverse today, and bands are so diverse. If you were a rock band in the Eighties, you kind of had to stick to one thing. Now, in this age of Coachella and European festivals and stuff, it's kind of anything goes, so that allowed us to try different things.

Dexter Holland

#96. The Doors formed on the beaches of Los Angeles, in what you might imagine is the tradition of local rock bands since the Beach Boys.

Steve Erickson

#97. People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally.

Jennifer Egan

#98. You want a showman, go see rock 'n' roll bands today. You want to have a shamanistic experience, get psychedelic, then you watch The Doors.

Ray Manzarek

#99. 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

#100. Rock never meant the same thing to everyone, but when I was growing up in the late seventies, everyone could identify the five, ten bands that formed the center.

Chris Cornell