Like all teenagers in the early '60s, I put down my hockey stick when the Beatles got big and picked up a guitar. We all thought we'd be rock stars. Then I got into comedy, but I'd always find a way to use my guitar, such as writing songs and doing musical parodies.
I certainly didn't want to be in a punk rock band, because I had already been in a punk rock band. I wanted to be in a band that could do anything - like Led Zeppelin.
I don't think I would live very long if I was a rock star.
Johnny Cash's legacy, I think if it was one word, it would be 'integrity.' He was the original wild man and grew from that guy that was doing all the crazy things that you read that rock n' rollers do to being someone who was like the father of our country, you know. He was a guest at the White House. He was Billy Graham's friend.
I'd like to say that I'm a rock star, but I'm not - I'm honestly more of a relationship kind of guy. I'm a guy you could take home to meet your mum rather than a guy your mum wouldn't like.
'30 Rock' is probably one of my favorite shows. It's just joke after joke after joke.
My inner rock chick has always been there. I grew up listening to a lot of rock music through my sisters, who were teenagers while I was young, so they had control of the radio.
Anybody who has ever played in bars has played 'Keep Your Hands to Yourself.' It's a monumental piece of rock & roll. It makes you feel exactly like rock & roll is supposed to make you feel.
Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your minister/rabbi/priest. Comics count. So does poetry. So do editorials in your school newspaper. Or a biography of a rock star. Or an instructional manual. Or the Bible.
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.
I always loved rock 'n' roll.
That's what rock music is, I think - constantly searching for authenticity, and being as honest as possible.
I think that becoming a successful rock band is a little like becoming a professional athlete. Nobody plans on it.
I used to live in Chris Rock's former apartment. I've got some junk mail for him if he wants it.
'Elect the Dead' is a rock record that takes you on a journey with different types of genres integrated, different lyrical themes digested, and many fun and colorful moments to enjoy.
Rock and roll's relatively new, in the sense of the Fifties, Sixties, right? They invented the first sort of rock stars, and they took it to excess, and then the excess became bitter, tormented. Then it became okay to succeed.
People don't think of cello as a rock instrument, really, and we want people to know all the possibilities that the cello can offer.
T-shirt and jeans style now is where I'm at. Maybe a little rock 'n' roll T-shirt and jeans.
Democracy can tie your hands in a rock 'n' roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you've got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it's sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.
I'm not going to be the rock star of the far right and frankly on the rock star of the far left.
Pro wrestling was there, and I was good at it, thank God. I started getting a lot of offers, but unfortunately, at WWE I was under a tight leash. I think it had a lot to do with The Rock making the transition, and me possibly being the next guy - you know, the company didn't want to lose another top performer.
First, I'd become an avid reader of blogs, especially music blogs, and they seemed to be where the critical-thinking action was at, to have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decade ago.
Rock n' roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world.
My job as the host of a rock awards show is not to be as divisive as possible, but certainly you want to be able to interject your jokes and how you feel about stuff.
If I could dress anyone, I'd like to dress the Queen - she can handle anything. I'd put her in black - she never wears black - and add a little leather, maybe. A little rock n' roll.
I feel like rock stars feel a sense of entitlement, whereas I just feel a sense of good fortune.
Being in a rock n' roll and pop world, it's very easy to act like a kid.
What is interesting, as well, is how much power homicide detectives have and how much respect. They are kind of rock stars, especially in New York. There are not that many of them.
You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.
The man who rows the boat seldom has time to rock it.
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.
The city - as the theater of experience, the refuge, the hiding place - has, in turn, been replaced by an abstraction, the fast lane. In the fast lane, the passive observer reduces everything - streets, people, rock lyrics, headlines - to landscape. Every night holds magical promises of renewal. But burnout is inevitable, like some law of physics.
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.
For me, it's always been about a mix of hip-hop, acoustic singer/songwriters, and piano rock. I pull all those together. Each song may lean more heavily on one than the other, but they all have all three pieces.
I love Eighties rock.
I actually like to sing on 'Rock Band.' I prefer to take the mic.
