Rock Guitar Quotes

#1. The whole reputation of being a rock guitar player, I could really care less about it. Still, when I hear new groups today I do occasionally hear something where I think ... ahh, I've heard that lick before.

Tom Verlaine

#2. I play really bad punk rock guitar.

Rhys Ifans

#3. Rock guitar has been around for decades now, and there are so many strong traditions, and so much of it is just burned into my fingers. So, nine times out of 10, when I pick up the guitar to jam something, it sounds pretty cliche.

Rivers Cuomo

#4. There are guys in country music who are wizards on the guitar. If you're a country fan, you're used to it. But as a rock guitar player, you listen.

Joe Perry

#5. I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that's what I'd end up doing.

Slash

#6. The cello is such a versatile instrument. It can rock like the hardest rock guitar, and it can sing like the human voice. We couldn't do what we do without the classical training. It's a hard instrument to play. There are no frets, and it takes finesse and technique to play.

Luka Sulic

#7. I would have to say I'm bored with the standard rock, guitar solos, but I've done it for five albums now, and this time I wanted to go in a completely different direction. I wasn't interested in showing off any more.

Kirk Hammett

#8. I absolutely love the Philharmonic. I also love rock guitar.

Trey Anastasio

#9. I just loved classical music, but I also loved playing rock guitar, and I loved playing piano, so it was a natural thing that those things would merge at some point.

Trevor Rabin

#10. A good example of a lyric that makes me laugh but might not hit anybody right away is, "Sit behind the guitar and play the chords," just because it's such a lame image. It's not rock'n'roll at all to be sitting behind a guitar.

Tim Heidecker

#11. My dad is a huge rock and roll lead guitar fan. I didn't even really know that until recently. Everything has to have a guitar solo in it.

Slash

#12. Once I picked up an electric guitar, I lost interest in piano, and I just wanted to rock. I studied piano for so long, I got burned out on it.

Juliana Hatfield

#13. He took it all too far, but boy could he play guitar.

David Bowie

#14. When I was 5, I started taking singing lessons, and then, after 'School of Rock,' I started taking guitar lessons. I would always write songs and play them for my friends, and I would play my guitar on the set a lot.

Miranda Cosgrove

#15. It was cool at the rock camp - girls could just be themselves and they could be silly, they could roll around on the floor playing guitar.

Courtney Barnett

#16. I don't really feel like a rock artist, but I guess in the small category of the world of music genres, that's where I fall in because I've got a guitar.

Courtney Barnett

#17. Sold my guitar to the baker's son for a few crumbs and a place to hide.

Bob Dylan

#18. I don't like the word 'rock star' or 'super star.' I am a guitar player, a songwriter who got lucky because I stayed at it and didn't give up, long enough that people noticed me.

Randy Bachman

#19. Speaking in a common tongue, speaking through guitars and drums.

Lou Reed

#20. I was a late bloomer. I was a kinda shy little kid, definitely a child of the dark side. I wanted to play guitar and be in a rock band.

Yul Vazquez

#21. 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

#22. Anyone who's got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some '50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That's it, really - I'm not a musician, I'm not a singer.

Aaron Johnson

#23. I just think that the question of women in rock or women playing guitar, I just think it's such a non-issue, and I think that probably the sooner critics and press outlets can just erase the 'what's it like being a women in rock?' question from their vocabulary, the better off everyone will be.

Annie E. Clark

#24. Johnny Depp already seen how alcohol and drugs can get in the way of a career. And you have to remember one thing: Johnny was a guitar player and a rock-and-roller way before he was an actor. When he came to Los Angeles, he came with his band.

Alice Cooper

#25. I wouldn't mind being the lead guitarist in an incredibly successful rock band. However, I don't play the guitar.

Ian McEwan

#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. Billy Rankin is a true Glasgow rock legend. He has everything going for him: he's a brilliant guitarist, he writes killer songs, he's worked with the best, toured the world and he is one handsome-looking chap. I know all of this because Billy told me.

Robert Fields

#28. Guitar music or rock n' roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it'll never go away completely. It can't die because it's so fundamentally attractive.

Alex Turner

#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. A lot of places we go, when they see the organ coming in, they're expecting rock and roll, but after they hear us play they like it. To me, guitar cuts through-it carries more than organ. But organ has got more guts.

Wes Montgomery

#31. We had a wonderful time with this kind of grunge awareness, where suddenly rock was cool again. People wanted to head loud guitars. It was a great time, and I'm glad we were there. But the gimmick part has worn off.

Billy Corgan

#32. At some point around '94 or '95, 'Rolling Stone' said that guitar rock was dead and that the Chemical Brothers were the future. I think that was the last issue of 'Rolling Stone' I ever bought.

Scott Ian

#33. Rock guitarists usually do not wish to think trains of thought about anything but their own guitar playing during a long solo, and I could not play this way if I were not able to divide my attention between my ever changing musical environment and my instrument itself.

John Frusciante

#34. I explored rock culture and what the guitar can do though people like Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin, and the music moves away from pop.

Johnny Marr

#35. What I wanted to do was play the guitar but I don't like instrumental rock. I think it is tripe.

Andy Summers

#36. I have undeniable evidence that many have awakened as a result of my raising hell. Raising hell is SO American rock-and-roll. And of course even soulless wimps love killer music and my incredible guitar tone.

Ted Nugent

#37. 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

#38. I was really crying the morning after the indication. However I am over that now. Nevertheless, I am proud for it to be in the Rock and Roll hall of fame. But I've got two copies of the guitar now, to remind of the original Teardrop.

Dave Wakeling

#39. Music is like a psychiatrist. You can tell your guitar things that you can't tell people. And it will answer you with things people can't tell you.

Paul McCartney

#40. That's the beautiful thing about innocence; even monsters have a pocketful of childhood memories with which to seek comfort with.

Dave Matthes

#41. I like to play video games like 'Rock Band' and 'Guitar Hero.'

Carmen Electra

#42. When I try to relax, it's more Swedish rock, softer music, and I go out and do fun stuff. I play guitar, but it doesn't matter really what it is - just something that keeps you away from hockey.

Henrik Lundqvist

#43. If you kiss me and then leave again to go write another
twangy song," she said, eyes closed, lips barely moving, "I swear to God, I will snap that guitar in half and feed it to you for breakfast."
"You use the prettiest words.

Jamie Farrell

#44. Rock and Roll is simply an attitude. You don't have to play the greatest guitar.

Johnny Thunders

#45. I play Rock Band, which is Guitar Hero times ten. You can play with four people, so when you have parties, you have a real band. Nobody ever wants to sing, so I'm always the one throwing down on the mic.

Elizabeth Banks

#46. 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

#47. 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

#48. People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n' roll first started, no one took it seriously.

Moby

#49. Life is like playing a guitar and meditation is like music. Small session of rehearsals daily won't show much but would make you ROCK in the long run.

Vikrmn

#50. The future of punk rock has nothing to do with guitars. Everything interesting that I've heard in years has been nearly all electronic.

Geoff Rickly

#51. 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

#52. I'm a singer-songwriter. So I play guitar, and I sing. Along the lines of, I guess you could call it, alternative rock.

Brandon Jones

#53. Kane is a band I formed with my best friend Steve Carlson. We just got together and started playing guitar. He was playing some old school rock and roll, and we got together and thought, 'Hey, let's take this on the road.'

Christian Kane

#54. The disparity between being a 10-year-old boy playing air guitar, wishing I was a rock star, and the reality of the whole thing is insane. A girl will throw her bra onstage, and I say to myself, if I was the guy that pumped your gas today, would you throw your bra at me?

John Rzeznik

#55. Rock & roll is not so much a question of electric guitars as it is striped pants.

David Lee Roth

#56. He never ever learned to read or write so well, but he could play his guitar like he was ringing a bell.

Chuck Berry

#57. I started playing the guitar when we started filming the pilot to 'Lost in Space,' which was way back in December of 1964, and there's a little bit in the pilot that was used in the first season where Will Robinson is sitting around some bad foam rubber rock playing and singing 'Greensleeves.'

Bill Mumy

#58. I love 'Guitar Hero' because I love music, but I have no musical ability whatsoever. So I love a game that makes you feel like you're a rock star.

Marisa Miller

#59. I'd play whenever I could get my hands on an electric guitar; I was trying to pick up rock'n'roll riffs and electric blues-the latest Muddy Waters. I'd spend hours and hours on the same track, back again, and back again.

Keith Richards

#60. Leadbelly's guitar is in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Roger McGuinn

#61. Like all teenagers in the early '60s, I put down my hockey stick when the Beatles got big and picked up a guitar. We all thought we'd be rock stars. Then I got into comedy, but I'd always find a way to use my guitar, such as writing songs and doing musical parodies.

Rick Moranis

#62. 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

#63. I loved rock and roll when that came in, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, all those great records. So I begged my mom and dad for a guitar, which eventually they did get me for Christmas, but it went out of tune very quickly, and it hurt my fingers.

Ian McLagan

#64. I think there are some good players coming up. I think we are at a point where people can swallow a guitar solo in a pop rock record again.

Gary Cherone

#65. My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that - so I've tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the '60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson's songs.

Todd Rundgren

#66. He holds his guitar like a Tommy gun.

Elvis Presley

#67. My guitar wants to kill your mama.

Frank Zappa

#68. Well, I'm known as a guitar-rock guy, you know? You're not supposed to play with synthesizers. This is not in the rulebook.

Billy Corgan

#69. 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

#70. I always liked playing music and I always wanted to be good at playing guitar. I always saw myself as an old man living in the mountains playing a guitar, but I didn't really turn that into a desire to be a professional musician or a singer or a rock star or anything like that.

Brett Dennen

#71. I heard the Beatles and the Stones, and Mom bought me an electric guitar. I played lead for four years and then switched to bass. One day someone suggested that I should sing, so I sheepishly stepped up to the microphone and the rest is rock history.

Glenn Hughes

#72. The vocals are the very last thing I do. So, it's kinda the opposite: with country. it's singing and guitar first, but with rock, I worry about the riff and music, vocals last.

Hank Williams III

#73. I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues.

Wynton Marsalis

#74. Gonna wind it up on my guitar. Gonna make that silver sing.

Tom Petty

#75. I don't see any rock stars playing an electric guitar from some new maker like you see in the acoustic guitar world.

Paul Reed Smith

#76. I invented rock & roll. Jimi Hendrix was my guitar player. James Brown was my vocalist.

Little Richard

#77. It's the hillbilly rock, beat it with a drum. Playin' them guitars like shootin from a gun. Keepin' up the rhythm, steady as a clock. Doin' a little thing called the hillbilly rock.

Marty Stuart

#78. I love classical music. Yes, I was in a conservatory when I was younger and played guitar and all that stuff, so I also love rock.

Matt Schulze

#79. Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that's not what I call rock.

Little Richard

#80. Scotty Moore plays one of the first really amazing riffs in rock history on Heartbreak Hotel with Elvis Presley ... it was dangerous, it scared everybodys parents, which was part of the attraction then - as it still is now ... it totally blindsided me and made me want to get a guitar and do that ...

Roger McGuinn

#81. The most important part of any rock song is the guitar solo.

David Lee Roth

#82. The street's alive as secret debts are paid, Contacts made, they vanished unseen. Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades Hustling for the record machine. The hungry and the hunted explode into rock'n'roll bands That face off against each other out in the street, down in Jungleland.

Bruce Springsteen

#83. Rock & Roll is feeling, and after you know most of the basics ... chords, rhythm, scales and bends ... getting that feeling is just about the most important aspect of playing guitar

Eddie Van Halen

#84. I always looked up to Slash from Guns N' Roses, and I always pictured myself being a rock star and playing the guitar, just going crazy.

Amber Rose

#85. It was Scotty Moore's guitar riff [in "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"] when he was doing The Steve Allen Show that got me into rock music.

Elton John

#86. I thought it was too 'glam rock' to practice. The problem is that now I'm a pretty bad guitar player.

Laurent Brancowitz

#87. What is Norah Jones' style? Is it just the albums that we've heard? She has a rock group where she plays guitar in, downtown in New York, so do we really know her style?

Talib Kweli

#88. Ridley Pearson also plays bass guitar and sings with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of such successful authors as Amy Tan, Stephen King, and Dave Barry-a band that, according to Barry, "plays music as well as Metallica writes novels".

Otto Penzler

#89. Don't have much, but what I've got is yours, except of course my steel guitar.

Rod Stewart

#90. I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.

Chris Cornell

#91. Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.

Bonnie Raitt

#92. I was just a punk-rock kid who never played acoustic guitar.

Dave Pirner

#93. I'm thinking about learning a few new things - like taking classical guitar lessons - and I'd like to bring what I learn into hard rock.

Mick Mars

#94. I had no ambition when I was a kid other than to play guitar and get in a rock 'n' roll band. I don't really like to be the guy in the white suit at the front. Like in the Beatles, I was the one who kept quiet at the back and let the other egos be at the front.

George Harrison

#95. Rock 'n' roll will never die. There'll always be some arrogant little brat who wants to make music with a guitar.

Dave Edmunds

#96. When the band begins to get a name for themselves, and the writers get assigned to bands, they'll hit somebody who just doesn't like that kind of music, or they love hip hop but hate guitar rock.

Kim Deal

#97. A lot of kids bought guitars and started playing rock'n'roll because of us.

Johnny Ramone

#98. I started playing the acoustic guitar for more singer-songwriter type stuff. I bet if I would have gotten more approval for my "rock playing", I might be a world class shredder.

Jill Sobule

#99. If you don't know the blues ... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

Keith Richards

#100. Being a professional wrestler was never one of my goals in life. I always wanted to be some kind of entertainer. I used to want to be a rock singer or a guitar player but I can't sing and I can't play the guitar.

Ric Savage