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.
The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.
Just the other day I pulled out this old cassette of Ragged Glory and I popped it into my cassette player and I was digging it. They were just a great rock and roll band, one that presents the song ahead of everything else - there's no grand idea or concept behind it.
If you live in rock and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It attracts women. It doesn't repel them.
I'm not terribly happy about rock and roll. Certain rock music is uninspiring, numbing; it makes you feel like an idiot.
I was always drawn to gospel music and the roots of African-American music. It's the foundation of rock and roll.
I love to sing big rock and roll songs; I love to sing country-pop stuff, and then I love to sing soft, sadder beautiful songs.
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.
If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.
Growing up, I was a giant KISS fan, and the truth is the record I had was 'Rock and Roll Over,' and there wasn't even a clear picture of them in the packaging! So I really had no idea what they looked like; I just loved their music.
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.
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.
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 mind is stuffed with quotes. Lines, couplets, paragraphs, stanzas; Bessie Smith, Stevie Smith, Tin Pan Alley, rock and roll. They tease or lead or hurl me into a dream space of jostling languages that I need to bask in each day in order to write.
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.
If you want to release your aggression, get up and dance. That's what rock and roll is all about.
Rock and roll mainly but I can play passable jazz also.
When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.
I played Big Band jazz music. I wasn't into rock and roll. I was just there because it was a living. I surprised everyone. I'm still surprising people.
I don't think I'm turning back the clock by doing these old tunes. I love rock and roll and popular music. It's just that the spirits of the singers whose songs I do are living within me. That's why the songs come out in the voices of the original singers. I'm not doing imitations. That's the way they sound inside me.
It's absurd for anybody to look around and hear the acts and artists who cite us as an inspiration, and then tell me that we're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
You can't have rock and roll without drugs, you can't have rock and roll without sex.
Rock and roll is - and should be - a kid's place.
Rock and roll is a contact sport. I enjoy playing the tunes that really get the people going.
The new album is a childhood dream come true. Got to sing with Ronnie Spector, got to cover a bunch of songs that were influential in drawing a line between the punk form and original rock and roll.
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 remember a song I did called 'If the Good Die Young' - I wanted to have a lead guitar solo on there, and the label flipped out! It was too rock and roll. They made us go back and put fiddle on the solo.
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.
The '60s are gone, dope will never be as cheap, sex never as free, and the rock and roll never as great.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke - the fact that Madonna is in before Rush and Kiss. Those two bands have influenced so many groups and people other than in metal.
I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice.
If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'.
I didn't think you could just become a rock and roll singer.
It's only rock and roll, my god! It's not rocket science.
Rock and roll and swing never quite mixed. Rock and roll came in and just blew everything out of the water. Big bands were dead.
Rock and roll has probably given more than it's taken.