Band Quotes - Page 36

• Trying to write music, be in a band and keep it all happening is one of the hardest, morale-destroying, heartbreaking things you will ever try to do - and that's when it's going well.

  Henry Rollins

  Writing, Trying, Heartbreaking

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• A little man is running a jewelry store. A man runs in saying, Okay, take my watch, put on a new band, install a new battery, clean the case, install a new crystal, and tune it up. I will be back in a half hour for it. Thanks! and runs out the door. The little jeweler says, C-C-C-Come in?

  Henny Youngman

  Running, Men, Doors

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• From the small clubs of the Harlem Renaissance where he began playing saxophone to world tours for the biggest of the big bands, Benny Carter redefined American jazz. From the start, his fellow musicians said the way he played the sax was amazing. They say that about me, too. (Laughter.) But I don't think they mean it in quite the same way.

  William J. Clinton

  Laughter, Mean, Thinking

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• The electric guitar meant that you could have a band with a drummer and a couple of guitars. And that put a lot of horn players out of work.

  Keith Richards

  Couple, Player, Guitar

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• At the battle of the bands the loser's always the audience.

  Demetri Martin

  Battle, Loser, Audience

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• I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say "rock". Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him "soul". They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap.

  Miles Davis

  Kids, Rocks, Years

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• I'm gonna design my own fleet of trailers. No! I'm gonna record an album like Jennifer Lopez. It'll be an acoustic version of K.C. and the Sunshine Band. Then maybe I'll design a line of clothes like Puff Daddy, but all in synthetic fur.

  Brad Pitt

  Sunshine, Clothes, Daddy

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• When we opened Babbo, we were an indie band. Now we're kinda Apple. We have 19 restaurants and 2,800 employees, we are no longer perceived as the indie band although we think of ourselves as the indie band, and we operate our restaurants as individual indie bands.

  Mario Batali

  Thinking, Apples, Individual

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• [Thelonious] Monk is a subject in itself. I mean, most piano players in most big bands sit down and they play with the band, you know. But Monk would just sit there like this. And all of a sudden there'd be a pause from all the trumpets and everything and Monk would go 'plink!' like that. And everybody would go 'Yeah!

  Ray Brown

  Mean, Player, Piano

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• I think I've done a lot in this business, whether through screwball methods or not I don't know, that has helped other bands. I made a kind of road for them, you might say. If I raised my price, they found out about it and raised theirs. But somebody had to start it, to make the first move. You have to have the courage and confidence in your own ability. You have to know what the hell and who the hell you are in this business. Music may change, but I don't think that ever will.

  Benny Goodman

  Moving, Thinking, May

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• Nothing surpasses my performances with small bands, especially with Charlie Parker. A small band doesn't forestall creativity.

  Dizzy Gillespie

  Creativity, Performances, Charlie

  Dizzy Gillespie (2009). “To Be, Or Not-- to Bop”, p.367, U of Minnesota Press

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• I listen to everything. As I told you, sometimes I just want to shut off from music and be silent. Then I play a song and it's refreshing. It's almost like initializing yourself. Recently I was in South Africa doing a press day for my tour. I listened to this band called "Freshly Ground." They were doing a live gig there so that's the last thing I've heard.

  A. R. Rahman

  Song, Play, Want

  Source: collider.com

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• And then we came here for three weeks of band rehearsal with [music consultant/member of the band "Sloan"] Chris Murphy. And I grew up in Toronto during Sloan's heyday, so like I was like "Oh my god!" And so that was pretty cool.

  Alison Pill

  Heyday, Three, Toronto

  Source: collider.com

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• Okay, I get kicked off the drums when I try and...the notes just keep coming at you and I'm like "Ahhhhh!" I can't do it. I have literally gotten booed off the stage way too many times. It's terrorizing. The rest of my band mates just are...they tell me to get off. I'm like, "I can play bass. Dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk."

  Alison Pill

  Play, Trying, Bass

  Source: collider.com

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• I knew the Beatles songs and how influential they are to other bands, but I'm not a fanatic, so I could look outside the box and observe.

  Aaron Taylor-Johnson

  Song, Looks, Influential

  Source: collider.com

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• Everyone has a fantasy of what they want their band to sound like. However, because I knew nothing about making music, I was unable to describe what I wanted properly.

  Joe Casey

  Sound, Want, Fantasy

  Source: thequietus.com

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• I'm definitely not in a band to convince anyone I can sing.

  Joe Casey

  Convince, I Can

  Source: thequietus.com

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• I got out of that immediately was that now, all of a sudden, rock music had become a spectator sport, that corporate labels and their bands were the new establishment, and punk was there to fight them the way the activist hippies must have fought what the establishment must have been ten years before. And it was interesting to see the reactions in different parts of the country.

  Jello Biafra

  Sports, Country, Hippie

  Interview with Jodi Vander Molen, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. February 1, 2002.

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• In San Francisco, most of the older activists, especially at Berkeley, were very hostile towards punks. The music, certainly, wasn't nice and mellow for them, and neither was our look or our attitude. While in Vancouver, the two most important early punk bands, D.O.A. and the Subhumans, were both managed by former yippie activists, who saw this as a logical extension of what they were already doing.

  Jello Biafra

  Attitude, Nice, Two

  Interview with Jodi Vander Molen, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. February 1, 2002.

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• 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

  School, Mean, Years

  Interview with Jodi Vander Molen, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. February 1, 2002.

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• I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have from reading novels. The understatements in the tenor saxophone of Lester Young, the crystal, haunting, forever searching sounds of John Coltrane, and the softness and violence of Count Basie's big band - all have fired my imagination as much as anything in literature.

  Ernest Gaines

  Reading, Writing, Imagination

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• I just feel like bands always need to work harder than the hardest working band. You need to constantly be one-upping yourself and surprising yourself at how hard that you'll work and devote yourself to your craft.

  Hayley Williams

  Hard Work, Needs, Crafts

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• One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.

  Branford Marsalis

  Listening, Musician, Instinct

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• Why do you have to retire at 65? Why can't you start at 70? You know, like wine. Why can't music be that way? My new band, we're playing stuff that's never been done before.

  Herbie Mann

  Wine, Age, Done

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• The best way to break up with a girl is like I'm taking off a band-aid. Slowly and in the shower.

  Anthony Jeselnik

  Girl, Way, Break

  Twitter post from Jun 15, 2010

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