We thought that's the way you were supposed to be if you were in a rock 'n' roll band. Flamboyant.
My band can tell you, I'd rather do anything than rehearse.
People from major labels were afraid to go to Black Flag gigs throughout most of the band's existence. They treated our gigs as something threatening. I'm sure that it probably was. They probably had reasons to be scared.
I'm competitive with anyone who writes a good song - I don't care if it's a band or solo artist or whoever.
I have so much music inside me I'm just trying to stay afloat. I don't tend to write for a particular band - you have to just write the songs and then let God into the room and let the music tell you what to do.
I wanted to be a lead singer in a band. I can't sing. I'm almost tone deaf. I still play. Next life, rock'n'roll for sure.
But then when he left, I realized that it was harder to write songs and feel spiritually connected to art and music as a band. When he came back I felt it again, instantaneously.
The shows are so different from each other, depending on whether I play with my band, Nine Stories, other musicians, an orchestra, only one or two members of my band.
I think it was probably down to the fact that we weren't together personally as a band. We weren't pulling in the same direction. I always feel if you're having a good time in the studio it actually comes across on the tape and that was a bit of a miserable album for us.
To actually put the time and energy into an album that would be better than Pull would be a hell of a lot of work, because I took that band really seriously, way more seriously than people took us. If you go back and listen to the records, you can hear it.
I've been in a band, so I understand the politics. Sometimes the bass player doesn't like what the guitar player is doing, and you have to sort of even that out.
I would join a band, learn from that band and be committed and passionate and bring my thing to the band. Then, when I felt like we were going to repeat ourselves, and I needed to learn more, I would go somewhere else.
As I say, the Animals had a particular concept of themselves as a band. There was an anarchic spirit in it, which was being flattened by commercial designs, attitudes, and needs.
Whether you like another band's music or not you never know who is going to take you out on tour or who you are going to be friends with and that is just something that is important to us.
In a way, it's my way of dealing with, finding closure with Grateful Dead music, and giving thanks in a way to Jerry and Bob and all the guys in the band for making up this wonderful music.
I loved Fugazi, the D.C. hardcore band, because they always did everything themselves. They had their own label, and the CDs always cost nine dollars, the T-shirts always cost eight dollars, the shows always cost five dollars, no major label.
I remember Glenn Miller coming to me once, before he had his own band, saying, How do you do it? How do you get started? It's so difficult. I told him, I don't know but whatever you do don't stop. Just keep on going.
We will have close to 3 months of rehearsals to learn about 30 songs. Frank usually rehearsed a band for at least 3 months. If it took him that long to be comfortable we probably would need double the amount, but It's just not financially possible to do so.
When you're used to playing with people, when you're in a band, then you're used to playing with each other. People nowadays aren't used to playing with each other because they don't have to.
It's more egalitarian on the Internet - anyone can put anything up. But in terms of the money it takes to allow a band to get good, there's less of it to invest.
Whenever anyone sends me a link to a band, saying, 'These guys sound exactly like Soundgarden,' it's always some super simple sludge riff with a singer that sings high and screechy. And it's really awful.
I was extreme... from skateboarder to hip-hopper to rave child to lead singer of a rock band - I did it all, and all at the same time.
I'm doing a pilot for Comedy Central with the band Steel Panther. They're faux heavy metal. They started as kind of a tribute band out here, or a cover band, and they're funny guys, and they just sort of morphed into their own thing.
Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.
What I see for the band by the end of this year is the Complex live at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I want my guys to be comfortable. I'm certainly not in this for the money, but I'd really like to see my guys make some money off of this stuff.
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.
We manage to bounce ideas off one another. Every band fights, but at the end of the day, we're very positive about the way we fight. At least we come out with a result.
We're real people and we're a band that's been playing on the scene for a long time. We've made a lot of friends, and one enemy we've always had was the NME. They've always basically slated us and they've basically never ever written about the music.
But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.
We owe America something because they turned us into a touring band. But at least we feel confident about appearing in Britain again now. Hyde park was the first time over here for ages.
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.
My favorite song to play is 'Smokin' by Boston. I actually had a chance to play that with the band Boston live.
So, I just kind of played the way I played and then eventually we kind of figured out what worked best for the band. So, I definitely changed my stuff up and I think we're playing really tight now.
It was mind-blowing. It was a small place with 2,000 standing-up tickets. It's great to have your band back and working and playing again, people have been so generous.
I really feel there's no limitation on what this band can do in the studio or on the stage. That's an empowering feeling - that we can bring a song to life.
When, in 1949, I decided to join the little band of early explorers who had followed Albert Claude in his pioneering expeditions, electron microscopy was still in its infancy.
