Rock Quotes by David Chase, Billy Bragg, Lil Uzi Vert, Moira Kelly, Washed Out, Romesh Ranganathan and many others.
Once the subject matter of rock n’ roll changed from cars and pop love songs to songs about really true love and the blues and death and mortality, this light bulb went off in my head and I went, ‘Oh, that’s what they’re doing. That’s kind of – that’s art.’
I came into this whole business by going to see Rock Against Racism gigs with the Clash.
I just take rock songs and mix it with hip-hop and a little bit of R&B.
I grew up mostly with classical, big band, and a lot of Irish music – I really didn’t start listening to rock and roll until I was maybe sixteen.
The music is at this weird intersection of dance music and indie music. It’s not quite dancey enough to do a full-blown DJ set, and it wasn’t quite rock enough for a rock band. But I guess it’s what makes us unique – drawing from a lot of different influences.
I like to go rock scrambling.
My obsession with hip-hop has given me an addiction to trainers, which are very much a young person’s game, and I am known to rock a full tracksuit, under the pretence that it’s more comfortable to travel in.
Music was segregated in the ’80s, and then in the ’90s the boundaries started to break down, and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock.
If we can figure out how to give more Americans a shot in tech, a shot at the ordinary jobs that don’t necessarily afford rock star status or come with generous stock options but that can sustain middle-class life, then we might just take a step toward stitching our nation back together.
We thought that’s the way you were supposed to be if you were in a rock ‘n’ roll band. Flamboyant.
I’d rather be a musician than a rock star.
Detroit was kind of a random thing where it was like a chance to be in a rock ‘n’ roll movie.
My mother’s records were formative for me, but when I became a teenager, I wanted to find songs that she wasn’t hip to. She was so hip, though, that I had to go outside rock n’ roll – so for about 10 years, I only listened to hip-hop, house and techno.
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.
There is no singular ‘reason’ why Africans use fractals, any more than a singular reason why Americans like rock music. Such enormous cultural practices just cover too much social terrain.
Survivor is like rock ‘n’ roll – you can do what you want.
Personally, I’ve realized that the tradition I thought of as too safe, too pretty, and too conventional is the space where women have been able to gain some practical ground. The area of music where we thought the status quo was really being upset – specifically hard rock – has actually remained the most male-dominated.
The best rock musicians are the most exciting people in the world.
The biggest problem in rock journalism is that often the writer’s main motivation is to become friends with the band. They’re not really journalists; they’re people who want to be involved in rock and roll.
If I go without rock for too long, I feel depressed.
Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvana’ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.
The movie Spinal Tap rocked my world. It’s for rock what The Sound of Music was for hills. They really nailed how dumb rock can be.
When I started out, everyone seemed to be adopting these names… Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious. I wasn’t really Rotten or Vicious or Nasty, so I wanted something a bit more funny – yet something that seemed real rock ‘n’ roll… something that acknowledged my ambition.
‘The Beatles’ did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.
I just love when girls rock short hair, because they can’t hide behind anything. I feel more empowered with short hair.
Punk rock seemed to make sense. I was listening to The Clash and I really loved their social messages and they have a great history of fighting racism.
Rock n’ roll is for the young idiots, not an old fart like me.
Rock musicians, and a vast array of popular-music musicians, due to their wealth, acquired through the mass of their notoriety, are able to be listened to and heard and thus are able to effect change on an international level.
I don’t have no favorite rock bands. I’m a fan of rock music, though.
That’s the beauty of creativity. It comes from the ether. I like to think, sometimes, it’s like I haven’t written it, it’s more like I just reached up and grabbed it from somewhere. That song, ‘Song of the Red Rock Mountain,’ is one of them. I recorded it and thought, ‘Where did that come from?’
Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.
Rock music is predictable, unless there’s great talent involved.
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.
When Paul and I were first friends, starting in the sixth grade and seventh grade, we would sing a little together and we would make up radio shows and become disc jockeys on our home wire recorder. And then came rock and roll.
I see friends who are in different genres of music, and they say they’re so burnt playing the same stuff every night. That’s why you see a country act wanting to go out and play an old classic rock song. But what cracks me up is that they all want to be Jimmy Buffett. I can’t figure that out.
This isn’t meant to make me sound interesting and rock ‘n’ roll, but I wouldn’t want to live with me a lot of the time.
I’m the age now that Rock was when he picked me up, so I can understand how he felt – how his fame limited his freedom. You get kinder as you go along.
There’s more to life than listening to rock music.
I grew up in a world that told girls they couldn’t play rock ‘n’ roll.
I think a great first date would be something different… not like movies or going to dinner… going rock climbing together… doing an activity and then going to dinner, so that you guys share an experience, and then you have something to talk about, and it’s not the same old thing.
The attractive thing about rock climbing: There are no rules.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again: NXT is like a rock concert, roller coaster ride.
There’s an edge to real rock ‘n’ roll. It’s all that matters.
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.
I’m not in the leftist controlled Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because of my political views, primarily my lifelong militant support of the NRA, the Second Amendment, and my belief that the only good bad guy is a dead bad guy.
I don’t think rock ‘n roll is necessarily a young man’s game. I think Neil Young is just as rock’n’roll now as he was in his 20s. I’d like to think we can still be edgy and challenging.
I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.
My dad has been playing guitar basically all his life. He’s sort of who got me into rock music.
I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.
As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both.
Latin music has many international influences – pop, rock, country, Brazilian sounds, and alternative styles.
Rock and roll is the hamburger that ate the world.
You know, rock stardom… I have a hard time discussing that because I don’t really accept it. It’s not really that tangible. What’s really bizarre is how it’s used as a thing – you know, ‘He’s the rock star of politics,’ ‘He’s the rock star of quarterbacks’ – like it’s the greatest thing in the world.
I love all types of music. Jazz, classical, blues, rock, hip-hop. I often write scripts to instrumentals like a hip-hop artist. Music inspires me to write. It’s either music playing or completely silent. Sometimes distant sound fuels you. In New York there’s always a buzzing beneath you.
It is easy for me to go play a rock show, I have been doing that all my life and I love that.
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
Rock n’ roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the ‘roll’ and called it ‘rock,’ which became a sort of umbrella term for anything with a guitar in it. Like hair bands. How could we possibly believe that? It’s just gotten downright silly, to the point where now it’s sort of become like professional wrestling.
Rock n’ roll is not just a fashion statement; it is the attitude, and it has a political posturing as well.
We were poor. My mother got our clothes out of the free box at the church, you know? So much of when you’re a kid is about relating about what you watch on TV. And who’s got these cooler shoes, and ‘Let’s trade lunches.’ And I was just like, ‘I don’t have a television. I have a rock and a piece of tofu.’
When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.
A live performance is the same no matter what genre it is. Wrestling, rock ‘n roll, hosting, acting – it’s the same thing.
I’ll rock with anyone – vintage rappers, young dudes, anyone.
I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.
Yeah, man I am going to be writing a book soon. The reality of being in a rock band in the music business’.
The ’60s are gone, dope will never be as cheap, sex never as free, and the rock and roll never as great.
I’ve been blessed to have insanely hip parents who think of me as their little Chris Rock.
The pilgrims on the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. To my knowledge, they didn’t wait around for a return trip to Europe. You settle some place with a purpose. If you don’t want to do that, stay home. You avoid an awful lot of risks by not venturing outward.
Have you seen ‘American Idol’ lately? I’m sure that some kids somewhere at this moment are thrashing themselves silly over what they call ‘Rock n’ Roll.’
I like a lot of old-school R&B, soul, and classic rock.
How gently rock yon poplars high Against the reach of primrose sky With heaven’s pale candles stored.
I’m sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don’t think there’s any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.
Crystals grew inside rock like arithmetic flowers. They lengthened and spread, added plane to plane in an awed and perfect obedience to an absolute geometry that even stones – maybe only the stones – understood.
Rock and roll mainly but I can play passable jazz also.
Rock fans are pretty fickle, too, you know.
Well, I think we’re the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.
If you don’t own the stage, you shouldn’t be in rock n’ roll.
Rock and roll is here to stay.
Thinking about the cold weather in England… Don’t be afraid to rock the David Niven look.
I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited.
We are just fans of music, we are not fans of a specific kind of music. We just happen to be a rock band. Until we explain ourselves, sometimes people don’t understand why we limit ourselves to just being a rock band. It’s because that is what we like doing.
What I wanted to do was play the guitar but I don’t like instrumental rock. I think it is tripe.
If you’d asked me when I was six, 16, and 26, I wanted nothing more than to be a big, recognized rock star. Especially when I was six and 16, because I thought that if I was a known guitar player in a known band, only cute girls would talk to me.
Classic rock, psychedelic rock – I like to dig up old music and see what I can get influenced by.
I’ve been a fan of The Rock ever since he first came to wrestling. Every time I went to school, I talked about The Rock. So when I finally got to meet him I couldn’t believe it! When he walked through the door, I went bug-eyed! ‘I’m standing next to The Rock, man!’ He’s huge. He’s very nice, though.
That’s what Kiss is all about – not just music, but entertainment, y’know? We’re there to take you away from your problems, and rock and roll all night and party every day for those two hours you’re at the concert.
Blush pink is a timeless, classy, and soft color that all of us can rock any time of year!
I didn’t want to be told what to do. I don’t want to water down my music to fit into their formats. I know what rock and roll is to me, but everything’s turning into one big commercial.
I remember doing the sex scene in Red Rock West. I had to kiss Nic Cage and then look like I was going down on him. And he couldn’t do anything – he just had to lie there.
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.
There was this whole middle time that only Chris Rock came out of, you know, 10 years ago it was Chris and a few other people, but that’s about it. Chris is in a class of his own; I don’t see another comedian who I put in high regard as him.
If you’ve lost focus, just sit down and be still. Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.
Picnic at Hanging Rock’ is the exemplary study of disapparition in cinema – I know of no other major film which deals with unexplained disappearance.
I’ll tell you sort of an odd story: My music taste changed on 9/11. And it’s very strange. I actually intellectually find this very curious. But on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded. And country music collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me.
If you’re gonna use simile, analogy, metaphor, be descriptive and have some flowery adjectives and a few odd nouns and some engaging bits of dialogue or sentiment, then you’re sort of writing a novel, really. But rock lyrics are not really known for their sophistication.
We’ve got great fans that rock and roll won’t have, because you can have a one-hit record and country music used to, not so much anymore and you have a fan forever.
When it came to music growing up, it wasn’t just gospel and R&B. My uncle brought rock n’ roll to me when I was younger, and I loved it. I was open to all music.
I write about nerds who go the extra mile and become rock stars.
I figure it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy; if I make a successful arena rock record, I’ll wind up playing arenas! I wouldn’t mind being back in that kind of venue because of the kinds of things you can do with production. You can make your shows more interesting, which would be fun to do.
Rock is all about writing your own script; it’s all about pioneering.
Punk rock really came out of N.Y. as a philosophy before the groups were ever recorded. I had a kind-of intellectual interest in the idea of creating a new scene that could be a grassroots thing.
When I was younger, I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock ‘n’ roll was asleep.
On that show, I did country and some rock, too, whatever record I had out at the time, I’d sing that.
There is a fundamental situation in which the country has reached rock bottom, that a mother can’t send her children out of the house in the morning. The country has reached rock bottom and this needs to be changed.
I wanted to be Jon Bon Jovi and Bono. But I’m not that cool. I don’t need to be. I’m not a rock star. I am who I am.
I love music – anything that catches my ears – but it’s more about lots of rock ‘n’ roll and really funky electronic music.
I think rock ‘n’ roll would become exponentially, considerably more difficult to perform past about 65.
There’s big granite walls up toward the Argentine border, but the weather’s serious, and a lot of the rock is mossy and wet.
I really don’t have a theme when I start a sculpture. The rock guides me to the final sculpture. I think that is true for many creative sculpture artists.
I sang in a rock band when I was training as a lawyer. You know, not professional, we just did it for fun. We just did gigs all over Edinburgh and some in Glasgow and some at festivals.
Parents walk a fine line between discipline and grace – values have to hold even when circumstances change or call for compromise or compassion. It’s the ultimate challenge to be both firm and fluid, soft and strong, yielding yet rock solid.
If I had my way, I would have sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll at least 4-6 hours a day. So long as there are going to be things in the way of that, we’re going to have a revolution.
I’ve asked these guys in rock bands with all the 18-wheelers driving to the venue how they make money. I just don’t understand it. But I don’t understand a lot of things.
I felt that the elegance of pop music was that it was reflective: we were holding up a mirror to our audience and reflecting them philosophically and spiritually, rather than just reflecting society or something called ‘rock and roll.’
The Academy Awards ceremony is designed to be without irony, but Chris Rock supplied it anyway with filmed movie-theater interviews with black men and women who had never heard of the movies nominated for Best Picture.
I’m like a rock singer with one-night stands on the road.
Every 15, 20, 25 years, a new rock and roll record needs to come out and a new rock and roll band needs to come out.
Originally, what we call rock ‘n’ roll was nothing more than an attempt of very bad white performers to sound like black rhythm-and-blues performers. They did their best to emulate, they did their best to paraphrase. And that started what later became rock ‘n’ roll.
I think that episode in the third season was great. I’m really glad that we did that. He got to sleep with Sydney and kill Evil Francie and go on a mission and pretend he’s a rock star.
Back then, everyone was Lana and Rock. No one had ethnic names.
Rock is so much fun. That’s what it’s all about – filling up the chest cavities and empty kneecaps and elbows.
The Americans are more honest about it and just call it college rock.
The songs that I like are the ones that you can’t visualize, that are just cries from the heart – those very straight, direct songs that make rock & roll music so wonderful.
What’s cool about indie rock is that one band can do effectively the same thing as another band, and one band nails it, and the other one doesn’t. I like that elusiveness.
Jazz was the beginning of rhythm music, which developed into rock and roll. But what the jazz musicians lost because they were so far from their homeland was the intricate rhythms of African music.
Rock bottom is a crisis… and everyone wants to avoid crisis. But what ‘crisis’ means literally is ‘to sift’ – like a child who goes to the beach, lifts up the sand, and watches all the sand fall away, hoping that there’s treasure left over. That’s what crisis does.
I lead two totally separate lives. There are times when I have to slip into rock star mode.
‘The Queen Is Dead’ is not merely the Smiths’ best album, but it is one of those timeless, perfect, inexhaustible artifacts that could only have been made by a gang of sullen, sun-deprived rock & roll boys fighting off adulthood tooth and nail.
Satan has declared war on motherhood. He knows that those who rock the cradle can rock his earthly empire. And he knows that without righteous mothers loving and leading the next generation, the Kingdom of God will fail.
I build on Christ, the rock of ages; on his sure mercies described in his word, and on his promises, all which I know are yea and amen.
It’s illegal to be gay in Little Rock – this is such a reality for so many people, but once people get to these bubbles of New York or L.A. or Boulder, Colorado, they forget.
You can’t trust politicians. It doesn’t matter who makes a political speech. It’s all lies – and it applies to any rock star who wants to make a political speech as well.
Many rock musicians are excellent cooks, I’ve found, and those that are prefer to eat their own cooking in the studio. I encourage this behavior as I also enjoy the benefits of fresh food.
If you believe that tax policy has nothing to do with the economy, then you’re pretty much like a rock, only dumber.
Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It’s a 12-bar form that’s played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that’s been used by rock n’ roll. It’s related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition.
For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16, and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that.
I’ve got rock ‘n’ roll in my blood.
It was darn nigh impossible for women in rock in the ’70s. There wasn’t a mold if you were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the ’70s. You were probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio would play only one woman per hour.
I’m a rock god? I’m five foot seven. I had me jaw broken, and so my chin stuck way out. That’s how I became tough – I learned to pick up anything and fight back… A rock god!
It’s better for me to play with guys because Rock ‘n’ Roll has such an aggressive attitude.
Tame Impala’s music revisits a time when guitar effects and studio tricks were music’s newest frontiers; when rock was barely old enough to drive and violently threw conventional ideas out the window.
I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It’s there to be a museum showcase of all that’s great about American music.
Rock and roll is – and should be – a kid’s place.
I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast, but I can sing every single word of rock and roll.
Rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll isn’t even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit that’s been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop.
Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind.
Def Leppard is a rock band that can sing.
Heavy pillars, carved from the rock, bear the roof. Slowly, one’s eyes become accustomed to the dim light; then they can make out marvelous representations from Indian mythology carved on the walls.
My first manager was Gordon Mills, who I’d met right at the beginning. We shared a flat in London and traveled with rock bands doing one-nighters. Later, he became a songwriter and manager whose stable was Tom Jones, Gilbert O’Sullivan, and myself.
The more technology we introduce into society, the more people will aggregate, will want to be with other people: movies, rock concerts, shopping.
People don’t realize it, but no one lives that rock and roll life 24-7. They think it’s hundreds of bottles of champagne flowing and private jets and money. But there’s a lot of time when you’re traveling – time to think, time to be lonely. Sometimes it gets to you.
I was a suburban kid who fancied myself somehow intellectual. I was into punk rock but I couldn’t get into the subcultural signifiers of dyed hair, safety pins and torn denim. Being a punk seemed like a new set of rules that I wasn’t interested in having to follow.
We’re a rock n’ roll band. We play heavy metal music. And we want to give you a great time. That’s basically how it all boils down.
Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.
Actually, I hear a lot of rock music. My husband is a big rock fan.
It’s wonderful for me to see what ‘We Will Rock You’ has done. ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are the Champions’ have kind of transcended the normal framework of where music is listened to and appreciated – they’ve become part of public life, which I feel wonderful about.
Heart has always been a rock band. It’s always been hard-rock.
I don’t think punk ever really dies, because punk rock attitude can never die.
People ask all the time, ‘What would you be doing if you weren’t Kid Rock?’ It’s simple: I’d be broke Kid Rock.
Rock isn’t a young music anymore. I don’t think it’s necessarily even a youth-oriented music.
My hero Socrates trained Plato on a rock. How much did that cost? So the greatest minds in history became the greatest minds in history without spending a lot of money.
I’m the greatest rock and roll drummer on the planet and you suck.
The friendship we share grows amidst the craggy rock pond; reeds of water spray fireflies scented with bonfires.
I think there are rock stars within every subgenre, and for people who are obsessed with musical theater Sutton Foster and Audra MacDonald are like Beyonce to them. I’m sure the a cappella world has their own version of that, and that exists in every geeky subculture.
I was at rock bottom for a year and a half – and the people who got me out of my rut were my fans.
It wasn’t just about flashing lights and pinball machines blowing up and things like that. It was about using encores, bringing back the good songs and using techniques that I knew about from rock performance.
In my next life, I’m going to be a rock star. I was a ballerina in my last life.
As a New Yorker you can’t help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ here; the Velvet Underground are from New York.
Rock ‘n’ Roll, no roses or gardening.
Mitt Romney – he had a Rock Hudson thing going, shoeblack hair and a well-hung resume, but even for a shameless, position-shifting phony he seemed a trifle insincere.
The big stadiums get totally packed, and everyone knows the words, and it’s screaming young girls. I met a whole bunch of great Nashville musicians, and they accepted me in their community. Classic rock and country music go well together.
I’d been watching documentaries about early rock where white artists took ‘race records’ from blues and soul musicians to achieve mass appeal. I wanted to flip that and do an EP covering only white artists.
Plus, I very much like the feeling of height, and buildings have even more of a feeling of height than rock faces.
Classic Rock radio gave us our longevity.
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.
I’m a rock and roll singer.
I remember Mitch Miller saying every week, This rock and roll stuff will never last. But one doesn’t like to bring that up to Mitch.
If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are.
We’ve gone further on this album, where we have a Big Band song, kind of a Sinatra-type song; we have a couple songs that have electronic music on them. We’ve got a couple rock songs, maybe a little heavier than what we’ve done. So the title ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ really covers the breadth of the record.
So I will go as far as I can into rock and roll carrying my Christian banner.
The guy who could be me, but he knows when to draw the line, is John Cena. John Cena can rock ‘n’ roll, let me tell you.
Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.
Queen songs are not about the life of a rock star – they tend to be about the lives of normal people, which is why I think the songs connect so much. We’re very lucky that they seemingly connect with every generation.
People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.
Only two to three per cent of an audience is interested in words and pays attention to lyrics; most of the rest of it is about image or the beat or the sound, or else it’s a tribal thing – country & western, rap, heavy metal, with historical folk rock off in some kind of cult.
There was a time when pop music and rock music were really reaching for the stars and were not ashamed to be experimental. You think of a song like ‘Shout’ by Tears for Fears. That’s a massive global No. 1 hit, and yet the subject matter is very dark.
With her high pale brow under her faded brown hair, she was like a rock washed clean by years of her husband’s absences at conventions, dinners, committee meetings or simply at the office.
I don’t put myself into the category of ‘rock star writing his biography.’ That’s because we live our lives by falling into experiences. Things happen to us. Something you do takes hold of you, and then you do a lot of it.
I didn’t want to be in high school. I didn’t want to go to grade school. I wanted to learn rock n’ roll and paint pictures and throw pots and write haiku and study film.
Well, Freddie Mercury is a really huge rock star in my head. I’ve always thought he was just so tough and such an amazing entertainer, really a contradiction in many ways as well. So he was incredible.
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.
Best two rock voices I’ve heard in a last few years both have been from grunge bands: it’s Eddie Vedder and the other one is Chris Cornell from Soundgarden.
Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god, but a great rock, and the sun a hot rock.
I’m always on the go. I love doing things until I hit rock bottom. Then I need my 12 hours of sleep, and I’m on the go again.
Algerians cannot offer what they do not have themselves. Many homes have running water for just an hour a day. In the cities and towns there are hotels, even resorts, and in the southern Sahara, where the rock art is second to none, organised tours are available.
I take smack because I enjoy it. I enjoy all it makes me feel. I don’t do it to be in with the in crowd. I can rock out with it.
We all had to dodge the idea we were spokespeople for our races. Like, ‘Hey, it’s the Mexican Guy! The Filipino! The Chick!’ We’ve always stood up to it and said, ‘Fine, bring it on and we’ll show you how we rock.’
There’s a hell of a lot of freedom in this rock and roll circus… it’s where all the freaks go – it’s the environment for me.
What I wanted to do in rock ‘n roll was merge poetry with sonic scapes, and the two people who had contributed so much to that were Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.
Crime fiction is the new rock n’ roll.
Dance music cannot compete with a really great rock n’ roll song. There ain’t no DJ that’s gonna play something that can take ‘Mr Brightside’ or ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger.’
I mean, like, rock n’ roll was always about spirit and fun.
I loved Riot Grrl. Not only was it a punk rock revolution, but it meant you could get dressed for a night out for less than two pounds!
‘Punk rock’ is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it.
Rock ‘n’ roll is ridiculous. It’s absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we’re wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.
Rock n’ roll’s had a good time out of me – and I’ve had a very good time out of rock n’ roll.
It was the early days of Rock ‘n’ Roll in this country. We were all struggling to learn music, it might be Country, Jazz, Classical, Blues or even Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.
We would not have rock and roll without Chuck Berry, and when I first heard Chuck Berry, I fell in love with that music, and when I saw him, I changed my whole career trajectory that I was on as a kid.
From that first wage case in 1958, I had, pretty much, rock star status.
With buildering, I get to keep that element of danger. Plus, I very much like the feeling of height, and buildings have even more of a feeling of height than rock faces.
Being a rock star rocks.
While Paul Simon is revered, I don’t think people get how deep he is. I love the guy. He comes from that early street-harmony, first-generation type of rock and rollers. He gets it.
I always want to rock.
I like to rock and roll, but I’m a mushy guy, too. I want to be the guy that all the girls love and all the guys want to hang out with.
I’m a big Black Crowes guy. I think they are one of America’s greatest rock & roll bands ever.
What you’re looking at there is my arm, going into the rock… and there it is – stuck. It’s been without circulation for 24 hours. It’s pretty well gone.
Music, Rock and Roll music especially, is such a generational thing. Each generation must have their own music, I had my own in my generation, you have yours, everyone I know has their own generation.
We have boys now, and men, in the rock and roll business and all the show business, who have this reaction on women. They scream. They yell. They do all sorts of wild things.
I guess the line between being paranoid and being a rock star is smaller than one would expect.
You gotta wear the right trousers if you’re gonna be a rock star.
I never set out to be a rock star, I set out to be a working musician.
I spent time at my grandfather Dino’s gourmet store where he brought in chefs from Naples to cook. I thought of them as rock stars.
The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I’ve performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.
Style to me is a mix between rock star chic-quirky-sexy and expressive. I always dress for my body type, as it’s important to highlight your pluses! I like edgy clothes that have character. I usually dress by the mood I’m in – so if I’m in my ripped jeans and leather jacket, you know I’m feeling rebellious!
I remember opening up my first vinyl and seeing the incredible artwork it had. There’s nothing like it. You also get that true gritty sound on vinyl that really makes a rock record sound great, which CDs can never achieve.
I said, ‘I’m a rock star. I can’t preach in nobody’s church. Are you crazy?’ Let alone buy one. Oh, I wound up buying one.
I was this Catholic kid, and I never really lost that. I loved the rituals of Catholicism. The mass is a magic ritual; it’s a transubstantiation, and the stations of the cross – I mean, a crown of thorns? Getting whipped? It’s punk rock.
I’ve never taken vocal lessons. My early trumpet training and a fortunate talent for singing has always been enough for me. In the case of rock singing, I’ve always felt it was better to remain a bit untrained to maintain your individuality.
My mother has done so much for me in my life and has continuously been there and been my rock.
Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity.
I don’t like rock. Honestly, I like to listen to it, but it’s not for me. There’s a lot of musical genres that I find interesting, but they don’t suit me. It’s one thing to listen to different genres, but to perform a genre that isn’t yours is counterproductive.
I had a stunt double for ‘The Bronze.’ She’s literally the most amazing human being I’ve ever seen. She’s NCAA women’s gymnastics champion. She was incredible. I would poke her thighs, and my nail would break because it was like poking a rock.
There’s always people saying that rock is dead, rock is over. People are always out to kill rock and roll.
I’m not a rock star writing poetry. I don’t feel like a rock star and I don’t know what one is, actually. I’m a goalie/poet or a hotel guest/poet or a father/poet.
Everybody has forgotten about showmanship. People don’t look like rock stars any more. They just look like regular dudes off the street.
I think there’s this primal need to go to a show when you’re a rock fan. And it’s about that camaraderie and about that intangible feeling that we all get.
Punk rock is very rebellious, of course, but it also means thinking for yourself.
Rock n’ roll is dream soup, what’s your brand?
Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.
Now, I don’t know how they judge all that, but if anybody in the world deserves to be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Ritchie Valens does.
It is proper that noble spirits, equipped with truth and enlightened with the Divine intelligence, should arm themselves against dense ignorance by climbing up to the high rock and tower of contemplation.
I have to admit I’ve found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I’m pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.
I think every film actor secretly wants to be a rock star as well; just that part of the job which requires the extrovert in you. Even if you’ve become an actor because it’s your way of hiding in plain sight, there’s still part of you which has that craving.
I wanted to make the kind of records that I heard in the discos that I danced in at that time. Funky, electronic sounds, while the musicians in the band were more rock oriented. This I suppose created the sound we know as Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
Sometimes I worked with just a background of a rock or a tree or black velvet, and just had to imagine the whole thing.
You know, Neil Young is singing Rock n’ roll will never die, and Neil never rocked and rolled in his life. I mean, he rocked, but he didn’t roll. He has got no swing in him.
I think that Stevie Nicks is one of the greats. Steve Nicks and Grace Slick and Janis Joplin have the real rock voices, to me.
I have taken my flight in the region of eagles; when I alight, it must be on a rock, and that rock must be a constitutional government, of which I shall be the head so long as I shall be among men.
I get asked a lot about the Rock N’ Sock Connection.
Of course having a baby derails the writing process for some time. And I will be the first to say that I have essentially no social life, because there’s just nothing left after being a mom, professor, and writer. I used to be big into rock climbing. No more. A lot falls by the wayside.
I was roundly criticized for being in and around rock & roll music at its inception. It was the devil’s music: it would make your teeth fall out and your hair turn blue, whatever the hell. You get through that.
I used to think of ‘alternative rock’ as a radio format, kind of the way ‘indie rock’ used to have more meaning. But it means different things depending on where you are or what country you’re in.
After twelve years of living in Hawaii, I’d gotten a serious case of ‘rock fever.’ I just couldn’t live on an island any longer.
What I think is cool about Fender, and what originally drew me to them, was the Fender electric guitar headstock, which I’ve never seen on another ukulele. I feel like a rock star when I’m tuning it.
I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.
Charles and I are from Augusta, Ga. – so we come from James Brown territory, soul music and Motown. And Charles has always had a lot of Southern rock in there as well.
Chris Rock is a good friend of mine, and he is hysterical.
Rock ‘n’ roll music is what gets me off.
There’s nothing you can really do to prepare to rock. Do you prepare to eat a delicious meal? Are you hungry? Then you’re gonna eat it.
I lived in an area where there were a lot of rock musicians, and we got together regularly in our studios.
I was about 17 or 18 years old, and Chris Rock’s ‘Bring the Pain’ came out, and I was obsessed. You know, it just hit on everything that was going on at that time and was such an in-the-moment special, and he knocked it out of the park.
I’ve turned 30 now and, although there will always be a bit of the rock chick in me, I’m trying to embrace my softer and more feminine side. And I am trying really hard to be healthy.
‘Wii Music’ elevates the scope of music video games by moving beyond commentary on what music is – as ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Guitar Hero’ do – to suggesting what it could be. Yet I’m still left wondering: Couldn’t it be more?
Detroit: Cars and rock ‘n’ roll. Not a bad combo.
So we got there at 6 a.m. We’d be shooting by 6:45. We wouldn’t break for lunch, we’d just pass food around all day. And we would just rock and roll ’til 4, then Matty Libatique, our great cinematographer, would say, ‘Outta light, guys’ – and that was it.
I am not a rock star or a movie star; I’m a businessperson. I definitely know who my friends are. I’m much more open and trusting than, say, my daughter is.
Honestly I just wear what I like. You know why? ‘Cause I can, I’m a rock star.
I discovered after going to music festivals that I am a rock fan. I love the guitars, the phrasing, and the abandon of rock fans.
The patron saint of outlining – the bespectacled siren who sings to me from his spotless rock – is P. G. Wodehouse.
I grew up rock climbing.
We need to stop saying we can’t rock this boat when it needs to be rocked.
Three-6 Mafia, we were always doing different kinds of things, and we like rock music, we like whatever – not saying they was rock, but they had a little rock-n-roll with some of their music, a little rock with it.
Anyone who’s 71 years old would look ridiculous singing rock.
I was always fascinated with rock ‘n’ roll, or girls, or something like that when I was a kid.
I’m not so rock and roll. I’m more techno.
I don’t listen to a ton of rock music.
I take cabs if I need to get somewhere or I take car service. I don’t drive, I wouldn’t mind riding a bike… People think that because you become an entertainer you gotta have this rock star thug image. I’m an artist, man. I’m going to live like an artist.
I think my wife saw a picture of the rock group Journey, and they’re kind of aging, and the one guy had dyed blonde hair with black roots, and… my idea was to get a little earring, I wanted to have a dangling earring.
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.’
Yosemite has the most impressive and accessible granite big walls in the world. The rock is amazing. And because of that, it’s been the mecca for climbing in the U.S. – and the world to a large degree – for all of climbing history. It’s the place to test yourself against the historic routes of the past.
I listen to everything while I train. From old school reggae, to classical stuff like Bach, to hip-hop, to rock and roll.
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.
You know, I always root for the older athlete. I root for the second album. I root for solo careers after the rock star breaks the band apart.
If I did one thing, I made cooking rock n’ roll: I made it sexy. I made young kids from rich backgrounds want to come into my world.
I don’t believe people playing rock n’ roll should have crowns. We’re not kings and queens. Anybody can play it.
God bless classic rock. It’s been very good to me; I’ll tell you that.
You’re talking to someone who really understands rock music.
If there is a Heaven, I’m sure Rock Hudson is there because he was such a kind person.
James Bond has a license to kill, rockstars have a license to be outrageous. Rock is about grabbing people’s attention.
I guess my music taste is pretty predictable: I like new indie rock stuff, older stuff.
A lot of punk rock is not going to be in the mainstream. It’s below the radar. The beauty of it is that you’re not supposed to always know. It’s subterranean.
A 30-year-old rock climber is an old man. At 40, one is in the middle of his high-altitude power. At 50, a crosser of deserts is at his best age. But at 60, each of us is out of the game.
Some people admire the aspirational rock star figures whose biopics make it to TV, the people they watched as kids and made them want to play football for England. For some comics, it is often the Doug Stanhopes and the Joan Rivers.
A lot of comics aren’t their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn’t always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.
I’m a rock climber, a high-altitude climber, an adventurer, a storyteller through my museums, and a writer of more than 50 books.
In general I was a good kid. It usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.
I was in a vintage pub rock band called Clover in the 1970s.
I’ve always had the hair of Lionel Ritchie since I was a boy, but the mullet sadly is a hairpiece. My wife won’t let me rock that hairstyle.
People in rock had this idea that rappers aren’t talented. In my opinion we’re better writers, we think deeper, and our concepts are harder – Rap evolves faster than any other genre.
When I was young, I wanted to do something more low-key, like become a drummer in a rock band.
I like there to be some testosterone in rock, and it’s like I’m the one in the dress who has to provide it.
My existence is about making movies, so I’ve just got to rock and roll with the punches. You want to make movies on telephones, I’m there.
How can you have a rock n’ roll circus without a midget?
Rock n’ roll to me is all about freedom of thought and to be whatever you want to be.
I really do listen to all types of music, not only rock, but everything from good pop music – which is usually older pop music – to R&B and indie rock. I love indie rock more than a lot of the commercial stuff that you’d expect.
The great thing about rock and roll is that someone like me can be a star.
Every time we rock our babies in the night, we bring order back to a disordered world. Every time we look down at our children and cry, we make the world one shade brighter. That’s what children do to us – and for us.
So when I got to be about 13 or 14, I started listening – even though my parents music was way cool – to contemporary hard rock at that time, which was Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Ted Nugent and all that, and that’s just where I came from.
At times, my confidence is rock bottom, although I try for it to be sky high, thanks to the people that are always there with me and support me.
Comedians get jokes offered to them, rock stars get women and underwear thrown onstage, and I get guys that want to take me fishing.
We’re all humans living on this tiny little rock, floating through space at, like, thousands of miles an hour. We should all just get along.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
You know that everyone thinks that in order to do South Park we must be wild, crazy, rock and roll stars. But the truth is we’re just wholesome middle-American guys. We enjoy soda pop, baseball and beating up old people just as much as anybody.
Our solar system is actually a wild frontier, teeming with different, diverse places: planets and moons, millions of objects of ice and rock.
A window of opportunity for me usually involves a rock.
What’s incredible with Trent Reznor is how he took all the alienation and the rejection of traditional rock and found a way to encapsulate it in a form that made the public finally get industrial music.
I’m not cool enough to hang out with any rock stars. Jay-Z doesn’t come over to my house. I don’t hang out with Ted Nugent.
So yeah, I play the piano for most of the show, but I like rock and roll.
I’m not dissatisfied with my place in it rock ‘n’ roll.
Rock music is not meant to be perfect.
It’s a terrible thing to go through life thinking that you have a rock on your side when you haven’t.
I am to wrestling what Elvis was to rock n’ roll!
Pup, who’s like the most amazing, they’re keeping rock ‘n’ roll and punk alive.
We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.
When people say Jerry Lee Lewis invented rock n’ roll, they forget Little Richard. People talk about Elvis Presley and forget he was singing black music. I don’t blame Elvis. It was the music business figuring it could make more money from this music if it weren’t presented from the original source.
I think there is always room for a timeless sounding rock band like us.
I had to overcome the name Rock. If I’d been as hip then as I am now, I would have never consented to be named Rock.
Rock climbing and surfing are two of my favorite things in life.
I think the hip hop world and the rock world still have a lot in common, but it certainly seems like things happen and break at a much faster pace in the hip hop world.
I love heavy metal, Metallica. I’m into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.
Michael Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It caused quite a controversy, because his nose isn’t eligible for another fifteen years.
I am not The Rock. I am Dwayne Johnson.
The Rock will always come back to us.
We Americans think, in every country in transition, there’s a Thomas Jefferson hiding behind some rock or a James Madison beyond one sand dune.
The feathers have been retired to the London Hard Rock Cafe. I don’t obsess about it as much. Also, it’s strange – the better physical shape I get in, the less I care about what suit I’m covering myself up in. I’m not really out to flaunt it, but I’m just more comfortable in my own skin.
Deep Purple is a damn good band and we’ve made a niche in rock ‘n’ roll history. Maybe not a huge one but enough to be very proud of.
It’s funny I’m talking to ‘Rolling Stone’ right now, because back then, it was like, ‘Punk rock? Put it back. It’s just a flash in the pan.’
After 9/11, we realized that all these silly culture wars, and arguing about rock lyrics… who cares? You know, we, for some reason, remembered what our real problems are.
Having followed the wireless industry long enough, I can tell you that building and supporting an application for different platforms is as tough as climbing a straight wall of rock.
I think that for the highest achievements nowadays… need to have the stable as a rock scientific base. And also need to own modesty.
Looking back on the production of ‘Nevermind,’ I’m embarrassed by it now. It’s closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.
I was born and raised in the high desert of Nevada in a tiny town called Searchlight. My dad was a hard rock miner. My mom took in wash. I grew up around people of strong values – even if they rarely talked about them.
My dad was one of the reasons I got into rock and roll, because I was learning the ropes of his business, which was selling powertools, and I was looking for a way out from under his heel. I was like, ‘Where’s the fun? Where’s the glamour?’
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.
Everybody can rock a bikini, swimsuit, unicorn onesie… whatever floats your boat. If you wear it with confidence, you will look hot.
There will never be another Freddie Mercury, one of the greatest rock and roll singers.
Ricky Nelson… I couldn’t believe it when he died. He was a great rock star.
I hate the word gothic but I would like to try doing something like that. A gothic sound, not rock, but gothic. There’s a difference.
I’d really like having a couple days of being a rock star, although I’d rather be a backup – like maybe the drummer for Muse… It would also be fun to be gorgeous, like be Charlize Theron, just for a couple of days.
Music is in Mississippi’s DNA, whether it’s the blues, country music, folk, or rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not just a source of cultural pride, but also a strong contributor to our economy.
I think it had something to do with my love of music, especially rock music.
I wanted to play this part: the goofy rock and roller who can’t hang up his guitar when it’s clear to everyone else that he should.
You either evolve or you don’t. I don’t like old people on a rock n’ roll stage. I think they look pathetic, me included. And the fact that I represent an era means I can’t just go out there and do all new stuff. They would all say, ‘Sing ‘White Rabbit,’ and I’d say no? That’s rude.
I grew up listening to all kinds of music, everything from country to rock, pop, R&B and even rap, so for me, music is music and a great song is a great song.
We thought it would be fun to try to design a show that would work well internationally and so that’ s what we’re intending to do with Fraggle Rock, and we are indeed now selling it around the world.
All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don’t subscribe to any of that. It’s all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the ’70s sounds nothing like the stuff from the ’80s, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the ’90s. Who’s to say what is and isn’t a certain type of music?
My parents are actually very famous singers in Bulgaria. My dad was in a rock band, and my mom was in a pop group. They met, fell in love, and actually formed a group together to escape the country because it was Communist, and they couldn’t leave. They didn’t know any English but eventually found their way to America.
It’s definitely an influence, I mean how can you not say you are influenced to play rock.
Rock and roll has probably given more than it’s taken.
The Stones were always exemplary of one of the best of all rock qualities: tightness. They have always been economical, the opposite of ornamental. Having a very clear idea of what they wanted to say they could go into a studio and make it all up on a three minute cut.
Dance music is no longer a simple Donna Summer beat. It’s become a whole language that I find fascinating and exciting. Eventually, it will lose the dance tag and join the fore of rock.
Everyone has a rock bottom.
Business people have been made into these rock stars because they’ve made a lot of money.
I came up from growing up with a lot of Catholic guilt, a lot of punk rock, hipster guilt in the later years where I think people have thrown a lot of things on me. Where I always felt like I’m not supposed to tell the horn section what to play or I don’t want to come off egotistical.
Most people are living lives of sort of survival. And constantly posing an existential crisis, either through fantasy or oblivion, really has been pretty much explored in rock and roll. At least in the western version of rock n’ roll.
To me, rock and roll is like an ethos or a state of mind.
Growing up in the icy isolation of Hibbing, Minn., Dylan, who was still Robert Allen Zimmerman then, found comfort in the country, blues, and early rock ‘n’ roll that he heard at night on a Louisiana radio station whose signal came in strong and clear.
My first rock band was called Mike and the Majestics. I was about twelve, and my older sister Kathy was the manager. There were three of us: me and a friend on guitars and a drummer. We were young, but we played for a lot of fraternity parties, plugging both guitars and a microphone into one little amplifier.
This rock thing got in the way of my teaching career.
Rock and Roll has certainly tried to take its toll on me. I’d rather not talk about my past excesses here, although some hardcore rockers might argue that those excesses were responsible for some great records, but I know which side I came out on.
I am like the little rock n’ roll backseat driver.
Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.
The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.
I’m fascinated by the narrative of geology, and I’m a veritable pack rat of a collector on the road. I keep a rock hammer in my car.
I haven’t always been confident enough to rock different styles because I used to be really shy.
Rock and roll stars have it much better than writers when they’re on a tour.
It’s such a lonely existence, living with a rock n’ roller. No matter how much he loves you, he will always love his music more.
Rap bores me, and all the glamour rock groups like Bon Jovi just amuse me. They obviously have a place, but they all sound like they use the same guitar player to me.
You know, kids come to see me in the same way that their parents would go to see a rock concert.
I mean, if you go to a rock gig and someone plays a ballad it can still really come across, even though there’s a hundred thousand people there.
It’s actually not that hard to play guitar in a rock band.
I’m trying to make music that I like, and I love hip-hop. At the same time, I love guitar. I love rock and everything.
Rock ‘n’ roll was two pegs below being a prisoner of war back then.
I know I’m not Freddie Mercury or Ann Wilson, and that’s okay. You don’t have to be a great singer to sing rock and roll. That’s not what it’s about.
Rock n’ roll can get quite overwhelming. You can get caught up in the cycle.
You stick your head above the crowd and attract attention and sometimes somebody will throw a rock at you. That’s the territory. You buy the land, you get the Indians.
When ‘We Will Rock You,’ the musical, launched, I was amazed at how successful it was. It attracted a new generation of fans. Freddie would have loved it. He was quite into that sort of stuff.
Our co-founder and company president, Jim Levy, came from a record industry background and understood the marketing and promotion of artists as well as products. So the video game business went from absolutely zero designer credit to something approaching rock star promotion.
All of a sudden, someone threw me in front of this rock and roll band. And I decided then and there that was it. I never wanted to do anything else.
The sax solo as we know it today would not exist without Gerry Rafferty. His 1978 soft-rock classic ‘Baker Street’ has to be the ‘Ulysses’ of rock & roll saxophone, giving the entire chorus over to Raphael Ravenscroft’s sax solo, creating one of the Seventies’ most enduringly creepy sounds.
What I love about being a member of KISS is that we’re the ‘John Glenns’ of rock – we always have to be the first in anything we do, and I love that.
I think the world is ready for some rock ‘n’ roll. Some real time guys that play their own instruments, write their own songs, and sing the music and have a good time doing it.
Achilles was like a rock star of his day so it made sense to have Brad Pitt playing him.
It’s true that we come from the electronic scene in the ’90s, but maybe just two years before that we were not listening to electronic music. We like music in general, and maybe we’re more close to the rock energy or the rock aesthetic.
Sure, my childhood was unusual. All these eccentric, wild people frequented our home: rock stars, drag queens, models, bikers, freaks. But I was not this little rich girl. My mom and I lived in an apartment.
You play a ‘lowdown dirty shame slow and lonesome, my mama dead, my papa across the sea I ain’t dead but I’m just supposed to be’ blues. You can take that same blues, make it uptempo, a shuffle blues, that’s what rock n’ roll did with it. So blues ain’t going nowhere. Ain’t goin’ nowhere.
I grew up listening to a lot of emo music, a lot of rock music, a lot of rap music, a lot of trap music, funk, everything.
I’m the first to admit that we were totally dependent on a particular place and time… for us, seeing Minor Threat at the CBGB hardcore matinee was just as necessary a force in our lives as the Treacherous Three at Club Negril or the Funky Four + One More at the Rock Lounge.
Being married is such a blessing, and my wife has been a rock. I rely on her for emotional support.
If you like something, rock it. If you want to rock a cape every day, go for it.
Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.
I would describe my look as ‘ladylike rock chick.’
I’m not a big fan of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s just a personal thing, not an ego thing.
After I saw Kiss on stage, I wanted my show to look like the fourth of July. The persona of Rick James was wild and crazy, sex, drugs and rock and roll.
I started listening to gospel when I was a little boy and my grandmother used to rock me on her lap.
Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music.
I love going to my supermarket. Sounds so rock ‘n’ roll, eh?
I always laugh at these rock n’rollers where you can’t understand them. Mind you, it’s not because they’re inaudible or indistinguishable; it’s because they’re too obscure.
Times were changing. Clothes were changing. Morals were changing. We went from romantic loves songs like I used to do to rock ‘n roll. Now that has changed to rap. So, there’s always a new generation with new music.
’30 Rock’ is probably one of my favorite shows. It’s just joke after joke after joke.
A rock musician’s career is short-lived. To extend it, you need to do other things to keep yourself fresh.
With technology and social media and citizen journalism, every rock that used to go unturned is now being flipped, lit and put on TV.
Actually freestyle really comes from ‘Planet Rock’. If you listen to all the freestyle records you’ll hear that they are based on ‘Planet Rock’. All the Miami Bass records are based upon Planet Rock.
GN’R was five guys who were all into different things. I liked pop and disco, Izzy was into New York rock, Slash loved Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, Axl was into Genesis and Elton John, and Duff was a punk rocker. We all blended that stuff together.
If the Police could do a reunion… One of the biggest jerks I ever met was Sting. If he can do it, then anyone can do it. It’s not that big a deal. And the Eagles! They did it! They severely hated each other. It’s just rock and roll.
My mom loved rock n’ roll. My father hated it. We couldn’t play it when he was around. He liked classical music and Duke Ellington.
The important thing is to build up my cardiovascular system, so I have the stamina to do stunts. To me, stepping over the line, taking a chance and succeeding is the ultimate freedom, be it in rock and roll or when executing a really challenging routine.
And I think that if I were a for real celebrity that was recognizable everywhere, I’d just crawl under a rock and you know, have someone run over the rock with a car, or something.
Everyone tries to compare cooks to rock stars. I see more comparisons to the fashion world.
It’s only rock and roll, my god! It’s not rocket science.
Everything that’s rock n roll is ever meant to be is happening now. I need to get over the shock that that thing is actually happening and that thousands of millions of people around the world are watching.
I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of fantastic people, from royalty to rock stars. I’ve also been known to be a bit of a daredevil, so I’ve tried to explore extreme travel and adventure – scuba-diving in an arctic glacier and camping in the Himalayas.
What I’m trying to do, in my own small way, is trying to bring African and Afro-Cuban rhythms into rock.
We’re a rock group. we’re noisy, rowdy, sensational and weird.
These were all middle-class kids from literary backgrounds, joining this sort of train going by, this pop train, jumping on. Whereas the rest of the rock scene, you’ll find that there’s mostly working-class people.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
I hated prog rock; to me, it was the ultimate expression of a bloated sense of self-importance and mindless self-indulgence.
We got skate parks in different states, but me skating? Nah, I’m too gangster; I can’t rock with it. But I watch it.
I am almost always, when I’m at home in the evening after work, in a silk bathrobe I got from India. Like, I never take off this bathrobe. I have a series of Indian silk bathrobes that I love, and that’s what I rock all the time.
They’ll see it. And it doesn’t matter if they don’t. It’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll. But I do intend to move more into the Mainstream. Marilyn Manson is just the First phase.
You need to turn over every rock and open every door to learn your industry. This process never ends.
And, as soon as I could put together the, you know, three or four notes that made up, like, sort of a rock and roll lick, you know, like a Chuck Berry kind of thing, I was off and running. Just completely taken over.
I love rock music, dance music, so it depends on my mood. But I mainly listen to dance music before going out on court.
I love ’30 Rock.’ It’s one of my favorite shows. It’s certainly the gold standard of comedy writing.
When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it – a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand – as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there’s a clash between the two, it’s bad art.
In grade one and two, I was definitely into heavy metal and Satanic rock music, bands that had attributes that were quote-unquote ‘Satanic,’ even things like the Rolling Stones with ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ but also like Motley Crue and Kiss and Alice Cooper.
Rock ‘n’ roll offered me a platform to speak what I felt. It also offered me a platform to support my mama and my brothers and sisters – twelve children.
I think Freddie Mercury is probably the best of all time in terms of a rock voice. There was a vulnerability to it, his technical ability was amazing, and so much of his personality would come out through his voice. I’m not even a guy to buy Queen records, really, and I still think he’s one of the best.
‘Sunshine Superman’ was a pioneering work that for the first time presented a fusion of Celtic, jazz, folk, rock, and Indian music as well as poetry.
The idea of the peace movement and of people who spent their entire lives trying to have a more egalitarian, just society, suddenly became swamped by the record industry, by the new rock and roll culture, and by the idea of not trusting anyone over thirty.
I’ve done archery for about six weeks, and rock climbing, tree climbing – and combat, running and vaulting. But also yoga and things like that, to stay catlike!
I look back on my life, comin’ out of Macon, Georgia – I never thought I’d be a superstar, a living legend. I never heard of no rock and roll in my life.
I love a vintage look that’s also a bit rock n’ roll.
When I was a kid, I used to make skateboarding videos, and I would pretend to be in a band and make rock videos that I’d edit with two VCRs.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is marketing. You’ve got a bunch of faceless people in a back room who trademark a name that sounds very official. Well, if you had thought of it first, you would have been the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music – they are music.
I was a really crazy kid. I’m still a crazy kid. That’s the nice thing about being in a rock band. You can feel 14 forever.
Blues is a big part of rock and roll. The best rock and roll got its birth in the blues. You hear it in Little Richard and Chuck Berry.
Every musician, their goal in life is to play music that people love, and I’ve accomplished my goal. I was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and left that chapter of my life and those people in the past. Good and bad, I’ve loved and am thankful for that chapter.
I guess you could call my music progressive, pop, rock.
Some say that Jesus is the rock, or the anchor. I say that your friends and family are your anchor. And you can really hold their hands, not just sing about it. No disrespect to George Jones.
Singing karaoke is my worst nightmare. But in the car, I rock out to anything Bon Jovi or Beastie Boys.
Rock and roll is not just music, it is a way of life, it has its own spirit.
A well-rounded performer will listen to all kinds of music. I like classical, Middle Eastern, and rock a lot.
My rock bottom was somewhere in South Florida. I hadn’t eaten for a while; I was super hungry. I remember being by a trash can and seeing someone throw food away. I thought about going over there, opening it up, and eating it.
Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.
Buddy Holly and the early rock ‘n’ roll was no lighter than the way I play. It’s very minimal.
Rock and roll came into my life when I was about 12, 13, when Little Richard and Chuck Berry had just started hitting the shores of England.
The weather was turning cold and I remember that Dante was using nothing but natural light as his electric department was away, prepping the scene in the cave. We stayed on that rock for the whole day.
I’m going to retire hopefully like Cary Grant did. I’ll be on stage telling a story, everyone’s going to applaud and laugh, and then I’ll drop like a rock.
All around me, I saw people who were taught by their parents, as I was, to just toe the line, not ruffle the feathers, not rock the boat too much and just put your head down, do your work and that’s it. And I think that as a community, we’re reaching the limitations of that kind of thinking.
The reason kids like rock ‘n roll is their parents don’t.
Pink Floyd, the most successful progressive rock band of all time, have stood the test of time because the emphasis was always on melody and atmosphere.
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.
I’ve always been quite scared about talking about race. You don’t wanna rock the boat because you want to keep working.
The reason I wanted to be a WWE Superstar was because of The Rock. I used to watch him in The Attitude Era. There was no one more electrifying and no one more must-see than The Rock.
We were on the cover of Women’s Wear Daily, which was hardly rock ‘n’ roll, but it pleased me.
I just want to be an inspiration. I’m a rock star, I’m Future Hendrix.
As we move towards resolution and understanding and greater serenity in all aspects of our life, love’s pretty elemental and that’s nice to know. I think rock ‘n’ roll is the same. I don’t pretend to understand it; it feels confusing and frightening and wonderful.
Family is very important to me because that is the footprint we perpetuate. That is, the ripple in the water when the rock first impacts the pool, and it is those waves, that energy that one produces, that determines our direction.
We did that with people like Chris Rock, Woody Harrelson, and the environmentalist Julia Butterfly Hill.
They wouldn’t play my records on American radio because I had spiky hair. They said, ‘Punk rock doesn’t sell advertising, it won’t make any money.’
Too pop for punk, too ‘old school’ for the New Wave, Mumps were a ’70s era New York rock band, out of time.
I wish that I had been in ‘School of Rock’ because, when I was younger, that movie was the movie. It really made me want to be an actor – that’s so cheesy. But I remember seeing it when I was little and loving it so much, being like, ‘I wish that I was in that.’
We’ve pumped waste into cavities in solid rock and found that it spread through the rock.
The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built.
I never thought of punk rock as the absolute act of rebellion for the sake of rebellion. There’s a lot of that in there, but for me I think punk rock was always about questioning things and making decisions for yourself, which is a great message to pass on to your kids.
My husband and I always have fun together in everything we do. Some people call me crazy, but the reality is that I enjoy spending each second with him. He is not just my husband – he is my rock and my very best friend!
Frank Zappa… was Beethoven for insane rock guys.
Mounting a large rock, I was able to see a considerable body of the enemy moving by the flank in rear of their line engaged, and passing from the direction of the foot of Great Round Top through the valley toward the front of my left.
I grew up in a family that was very musical, learned the blues and everything like that. And I became a little bit frustrated with the simplicity of rock n’ roll and blues. I started listening to a lot of classical music – mainly Bach, Vivaldi.
I’m into the old school. I listen to rock, soft rock, jazz, old school R&B.
Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.
I was drawn to love songs, but I was just drawn to great music – no matter if it’s hip-hop, pop, R&B or whether it’s rock n’ roll or country. It could be a Garth Brooks song, and if it’s a smash, then I’ll love the different wordplay and different melodies. That’s what I’m a fan of – great music.
Rock Hudson let his gay agent marry him off to his secretary because he didn’t want people to get the right idea.
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.
My musical background is like almost every non classical musician in the world. One day a special record was heard and that was it. I was hooked, started trying to play various instruments and was off to bar land to become a rock star. What else?
When attempting to make a plea for more peace in the world at a rock concert, we are reflecting the feelings of all those we have come in contact with so we may all have a better understanding of each other.
The buried talent is the sunken rock on which most lives strike and founder.
We stand our best chance of leaving a legacy to those who want to learn, our children, by standing firm. In matters of style, hey, swing with the stream. But in matters of principle, you need to stand like a rock.
I’ve always wanted to do a movie that takes place in the 70’s and was about rock and roll and getting high, like Dazed and Confused or Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Mama is my chance to be a stand-up comedian. In my mind, it’s my chance to be Chris Rock.
I’m not a folk or jazz singer, more a hard-edged pop singer – with some rock, and song hooks.
Ziggy Stardust, the Village People, and punk rock really shaped who I am as a person and as a gay man.
‘She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.
I jumped off a cliff backwards for ‘I Am Number Four,’ which was pretty cool. I’d never done that before. It took seven takes from different angles and luckily there were no injuries. I came close, though. My head nearly hit the rock at one point.
I was always brought up to have a cup of tea at halfway up a rock face.
I love coming to Detroit. First getting to be buddies with Kid Rock in the beginning, and him being really great to us, showing us love, the love of the city. I feel like it’s our city now, too.
I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
I make a living playing rock n’ roll. I’m not going to complain about anything.
I grew up listening to the alternative rock music from the ’90s. Some of my favorite bands included Dinosaur Jr, Guided By Voices, and Cobra Verde.
Good rock music always tends to be around.
Sure, we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs, but I don’t know if we’ve had more than any other rock band… we just have a way of getting ourselves into hot water.
