School Band Quotes

#1. When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'

Wynton Marsalis

#2. I played in the high school band. I was the one baritone saxophone out of 80 other people. No one could tell whether I was hittin' the right notes or the wrong notes.

Bobby Keys

#3. I shined off high school band, marching, jazz studies. At the time I was too cool for school, I had this professional gig and I was going home taking a shower and heading to downtown Hawaii, Waikiki.

Eric Hernandez

#4. From the age of four, I loved ballet and tap. I was in the school band, the choir, and all my school plays.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw

#5. I just started as a part of the public school music program. I took lessons at the school every Friday and was a part of the school band. I was just a normal kid taking instrumental lessons at school, nothing special.

Kenny G

#6. At one point I had dreams of being in the school band, but I didn't play an instrument that qualified me, and that was a problem. I always had fantasies to be part of that, but I did take my piano lessons quite seriously.

Paul Smith

#7. I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.

Quincy Jones

#8. I think if I wasn't a musician, I would be a high-school band director or orchestra director. I like working with large groups of musicians and bringing out the dynamics and accomplishing something as a team.

Rivers Cuomo

#9. 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

#10. As a kid, I was obsessed with the Who. They were the most important band to me. Songs like "I'm One" helped me get through high school.

Judd Apatow

#11. I was a schooled musician. When I made 'Blue Velvet', I told everyone what to do. I was an arranger. I learned music in school I told the band to play this. I told the guitar to do that.

Bobby Vinton

#12. I like the old school heavy metal bands like AC/DC and Aeromith. I like that type of music. As the director, I tried to influence the type of music the bands in the movie would play.

Dolph Lundgren

#13. I played the drums, and I was in a band called Funkasaurus Rex in Toronto. When I left for school, it became hard to play as frequently.

Jake Epstein

#14. I was in a band at school, and almost from the day we started, I started writing songs, just because that seemed what you did.

Jamie Lawson

#15. I didn't realize Metallica was as big as they were. I just thought it was my buddy Kirk's band - we went to high school together. I wasn't really following metal.

Les Claypool

#16. 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

#17. You can never rely on musicians. I quit high school at one point to make a go of it with this band and we kept breaking up. So I went back to school.

David James Elliott

#18. Actually, when I was in elementary school, I saw a saxophone. A band came to my school, and I saw this guy get up and play this solo. And I said, 'Oh man, what is that! That must be fantastic!'

Ornette Coleman

#19. I was just a kid in 1987 when I heard of the Pixies, the year after I graduated high school. But I had my band together, and my best friend at the time, Corey Hickock, who was the guitar player in the band that would become STP, Mighty Joe Young, turned me on to the Pixies.

Scott Weiland

#20. In high school no guys wanted to be in a band with me unless I was going to play bass or play grindcore or be in a scream-o band, so it was fun to finally have that experience of having my songs backed by a drummer and a bassist who were just as excited about it as I was.

Weyes Blood

#21. 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

#22. 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

#23. I was the Head Boy of East High School in 1999. I represent 303 - the area code, not the band - Mile High, until I die. I'm 31, a comedian; I juggle, but I don't glove it. I think waxed mustaches run a very thin line between hipster and 1800s barkeep.

T. J. Miller

#24. I've got an article where my mum says that I used to run home from school to watch the Stones on TV. Right from when I was at college I wanted to be in that band.

Ron Wood

#25. The thing that helped me get into the film business was that I went to school in Athens, Georgia and managed to get on, um, working on music videos for a band called R.E.M. and that kind of opened up a lot of doors for me.

Alton Brown

#26. There's something intrinsically Australian about a bunch of brothers and school friends getting together as a band at a very young age and all pulling together as a band at a very young age and all pulling together as mates to make something happen.

Michael Hutchence

#27. One day when I was like 9, I heard the Beatles on the radio, and I asked my dad who they were. He told me they were the best band in the world, and I became obsessed. He started giving me their albums in sequential order, and I listened to them - and only them - until I was probably in high school.

Lukas Haas

#28. I was in the De Witt Clinton Hight School marching band. One of the worst bands ever formed. When we played the national anthem, people from every country stood - except Americans.

Robert Klein

#29. At my high school, there were always kids carrying acoustic guitars around, which is why I named my band the Mountain Goats. I didn't want to seem like one of those guys who brought his guitar to the party whether you asked him to or not.

John Darnielle

#30. I love to play guitar and hack around. I was in a band when I was in high school. I never learned to play very well, but I enjoyed it.

John F. Kerry

#31. 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

#32. I got into music, I was in a band, I was at art school. I was quite trendy, although I'd hate to meet myself. The over-preening, the pretentiousness, the arrogance of youth! I think, 'Oh, that guy was so full of himself.'

Peter Capaldi

#33. Too pop for punk, too 'old school' for the New Wave, Mumps were a '70s era New York rock band, out of time.

Lance Loud

#34. I think that every band is different, and in fact that's one of the biggest problems with the old-school music industry is that ... one band would be successful according to a certain approach, and then every other band in the label gets sent down the same tube.

Emily Haines

#35. Acting was always something I loved doing, but I didn't know that I would pursue it professionally. I really loved doing plays at school, but I was in a rock band and ended up going to a school for music.

Jesse Johnson

#36. I had a band called the Sound Of Love, and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape, and that was that.

Mac DeMarco

#37. I started writing songs in high school and always wanted to have a band, and eventually my creative endeavors developed into Theocracy. So in some ways, you could say the vision has been there since I started writing songs.

Matt Smith

#38. In high school, I stole a six-foot submarine sandwich from a banquet room in front of several hundred people. I did it because I was in marching band, and we were promised food if we played, and they broke their promise. It was my first and only heist, motivated by justice and hunger.

Greg Van Eekhout

#39. My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.

Chuck Mangione

#40. Talk. We are going to talk first. I want to see you smile and laugh. I want to know what your favorite show was when you were a kid and who made you cry at school and what boy band you hung posters of on your wall. Then I want you naked in my bed again.

Abbi Glines

#41. You know, in the 1970's, when I was in high school, I belonged to a band called the Happy Funk Band. Until an unfortunate typo caused us to be expelled from school.

Colin Mochrie

#42. When I was in high school I wanted to be in the most underground band ever so we didn't have a name, songs, no one could play or sing anything and I didn't tell the other members they were in the band.

Christy Leigh Stewart

#43. 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

#44. 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

#45. There were so many specific things from high school jazz band that I remembered: the conductor searching out people who were out of tune, or stopping and starting me for hours in front of the band as they watched.

Damien Chazelle

#46. My mom passed away a day before high school started, and her dream was for me to be a full rock and roll guy, and play drums in a band.

Travis Barker

#47. I like watching
from inside, as if locked away
and stealing the distinct pleasure
of a high school marching band drum section's
pure perfection. How stoically they play
in the exhaust of a fire engine's wake.

Kristen Henderson

#48. I went to a boarding school when I was 13, and it was a very arty school, so there was an opportunity for a lot more. I joined a band and so on. We would do concerts at school, and I would play cover tunes and thought, 'This is really great.'

Teddy Thompson

#49. I did the marching band all throughout junior high and high school. Music was one of my favorite things in school.

Tommy Lee

#50. I was playing in bands before high school even. My first band I was in at 14. And we were playing just Beatles.

Dan Fogelberg

#51. My world was a community ballet school, a marching band, my two sisters and my girlfriends. I played saxophone in the band and was a bit nerdy.

Jennifer Garner

#52. During another argument, Gene snapped at Peter: "Peter, you're an illiterate idiot who can't read or even talk correctly and never finished school." "Yeah," said Peter, "and I'm in the same band as you." To this day, that remains the smartest thing I ever heard Peter say.

Paul Stanley

#53. The best part of the high school in Hastings must have been the Music Department. Its orchestra and concert band did well in county competitions, and the dance band formed by its students was the best in the region. I played lead trumpet in all of them.

Edmund Phelps

#54. I played a lot of music all throughout my life, actually, but in high school I was in marching band and all the bands. So, I was big into music, I was big into drawing and sculpture, and all these different things.

Kirsten Lepore

#55. 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

#56. I started out singing in high school in the choir and in a garage band.

Stark Sands

#57. When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.

Jason Mraz

#58. My brother Leon started it all. He played the piano. In school they made me leader of the orchestra because I played the violin, but I followed Leon and the boys in his jazz band around.

Louis Prima

#59. Growing up going to Christian school and the concept that you're born a sinner and you don't really have a choice to change who you are has been hammered into my head and created the entire reason why I made art and made a band and made records called 'Antichrist Superstar.'

Marilyn Manson

#60. I always sang. I wanted to be in a band with my sister, and I was, at 11. At 12, I started writing seriously, and that was my pacifier all through high school - that and painting.

Cyndi Lauper

#61. I played trombone for 10 minutes, and then I was in an accordion band in school for even less.

Colm Meaney

#62. On time for us was thirty minutes before actually started, because the half hour before the first bell was the highlight of our social calendars: standing outside the side door that led into the band room and just talking.

John Green

#63. We signed with Roadrunner because, they almost signed us in '97 or something, and we've been wanting to work with Monty Connor, the guy who signed us, for a long time because he's been a huge fan of us since, I mean, in high school, when I was in high school and he was following our band.

Jess Margera

#64. My high-school dream was to be in a band, pay my rent and eat - and I've been able to do that for 20 years. So I'm completely content.

Evan Dando

#65. Because you're in a band, you go for other people in bands or in the music industry, but people don't grow up right when they're on tour all the time. They don't do the same things as someone who's been at home and gone to school and got a bunch of crappy jobs.

~Allison Robertson

Paul Miles

#66. I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.

Wyclef Jean

#67. When I was in high school, if my favorite band got too popular, I'd watch carefully.

Mike Shinoda

#68. I grew up in a school that had a big music program, and it was incredible. It's what I looked forward to during the day. I had chorus, strings, band.

Alison Krauss

#69. I joined a band because I didn't like school, and there's nothing else I'd rather have done. If I really wanted to make money, I'd be in real estate. But I'm rich enough. I have a son and daughter, a lovely home, and if I see something I like, I can buy it. That's rich enough.

Robert Palmer

#70. Looking back, I didn't realize until years later what a huge influence Red Skelton was in my stage demeanor with the band. I mean, I always liked things that were funny, and later I realized that having a sly sense of humor was a way to get attention and even respect in school.

Jello Biafra

#71. I actually studied engineering in school - I have a degree in mechanical engineering. But, when I got out of school, instead of going to work as an engineer, I was in a band.

Mark Frauenfelder

#72. But then all of all a sudden the breath is kicked out of me and I'm shoved onto the cold hard concrete floor of my life now, because I remember I can't run home after school and tell Bails about a new boy in band. My sister dies over and over again, all day long.

Jandy Nelson

#73. Then one day in school, I turned round to the others and said, 'Dude, what if we started a band like All Time Low?

5 Seconds Of Summer

#74. When I got out of high school, I joined a local blues band in Philadelphia - Woody's Truck Stop.

Todd Rundgren

#75. In high school, I once sang 'Let's Get It On' and 'Brown Sugar' with a band that included my English teacher and my math teacher.

Chris Pine

#76. Most of my friends were in band, and most of my free time during school was spent within twenty feet of the band room

John Green

#77. I was kind of an outcast in school 'cause I always kept to myself and was writing poetry and then going on tour with my brother band all the time, so kids didn't know what to make of me.

Christina Perri

#78. Then I left that school and I went to Cerritos College, which was in southern California; they had one of the best big band programs in the country at the time.

Bobby McFerrin

#79. There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go.

Rainn Wilson

#80. I actually had a movie green lit at Disney the same week 'Burlesque' was green lit - a movie for Disney called 'Mash-Up', about a high school marching band.

Steve Antin

#81. I dropped out of school at 17 and joined the Irish band The Frames, getting my first glimpse into the world of professional film making while shooting of a number of rock videos.

John Carney

#82. In high school, I was always into Jerry Lee Lewis, and they decided they needed a piano player for the jazz band. I had my little boogie-woogie thing that I did, so I did my little boogie-woogie thing. I had a very high-pitched voice.

Nellie McKay

#83. 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

#84. Most of the time I was in grammar school through high school, I was in some kind of rock n' roll band. I would say that at least 80 percent of my energy was involved with whatever band I was involved in.

Lee Atwater

#85. 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

#86. Forgiveness is a big deal to Jesus, and like that guy in high school with a garage band, he talks about it, like, all the time.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

#87. Age 10. I joined the school marching band as a drummer.

Adrian Belew

#88. In high school, I had a wonderful teacher who, coincidentally also taught Meryl Streep before me. At the same time I had my own rock band, I played bass and sang. I was one of those kids who really enjoyed being with my friends and doing rather insane, but fun, creative things.

Roger Bart

#89. I hated school ... I freaking hated it. The fact is that it revolved around something you didn't have access to. If you weren't on the football team, if you were in the band, you were a leper. When people say those were the best years of our lives, I want to scream.

Trent Reznor

#90. Myron? My brain screeches to a halt. I've transferred to a school where they name kids Myron?!

Courtney Brandt

#91. When we first met, I was trying to put a band together. I asked around at school for other guys who wanted to play in a band. Someone told me about a juvenile delinquent they knew who played bongos.

Wayne Kramer

#92. I had spent hundreds of hours gazing out at the calm, conquered suburban landscape surrounding my school, silently yearning for the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse, a freak accident that would give me super powers, or perhaps the sudden appearance of a band of time-traveling kleptomaniac dwarves.

Ernest Cline

#93. I played trumpet in school once because I joined band because a cute boy played trumpet too. And I was really bad at trumpet.

Skylar Grey

#94. I love music, and I love drumlines. I like school bands a lot. There's nothing wrong with cheerleading, but I'd rather be a band geek. It's a little more interesting.

Jurnee Smollett

#95. There were no good bands in my town. You know, there's like this magic town where every kid started a band in high school, and half of them were good and have careers based on relationships built at that time? That wasn't what my life was like at all.

Autre Ne Veut

#96. The premise of 'Secret Coders' is reminiscent of 'Harry Potter.' An intrepid band of tweens stumbles upon a secret school, only instead of teaching magic, the school teaches coding.

Gene Luen Yang

#97. I started at home as a kid putting on shows and lip-syncing Michael Jackson for the grown-ups. Then, in musicals and plays in school. At 17, I was performing in coffee shops and in parking lots at Phish shows. At 18, I had a band that played local shows in the Northwest.

Matisyahu

#98. I went to art school, and that's how I got the internship, and then I started a band. But I always missed comics, I always wanted to do them.

Gerard Way

#99. I only went a year to high school. I should have been in high school, but I was in a band, and when you're successful doing that - well, you aren't too likely to go back.

Peter Noone

#100. I played the tuba in high school. I wanted to be a member of the marching band. I thought, what can I play that has the most effect? What can I play to get people to laugh?

Patti LuPone