Some have called we rock and roll performers who never retire 'troubadours.' I enjoy this misnomer immensely. While there are many differences between me and my distant predecessors in L'Occitane, I do believe there is a lineage that connects us of the last 70 years with those romantic singers of the High Middle Ages.
I think, describing Elvis for me would be a very generous king. He was the king of rock and roll, will always be. He's whats made it possible for everyone to be performers and to do the things they do now.
I'm from Italy, but when I'm in L.A., I dress a little bit rock and roll.
It was a source of shame for my family that I was in rock and roll, which is so blue-collar. It just isn't done. And I felt it, too.
I think God is the most unexplored territory in rock and roll music.
I listened to classic rock and roll, and punk rock. 'Goon Squad' provides a pretty accurate playlist of my teenage years, though it leaves out 'The Who,' which was my absolute favorite band.
Whatever adults don't understand, because they didn't grow up with it, is the thing they're going to be afraid of and try to legislate out of existence. It happened with videogames, it happened with television, it happened with pinball parlours and rock and roll.
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.
Iggy Pop is a pure Michigan product - gritty, smart, but not afraid of looking stupid or foolish. His father was once a high school English teacher. I love Iggy as a physical entity, sinewy, twisty - even in old age - an embodiment of rock and roll history.
In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.
I loved being a rock and roll star, but it wasn't what I wanted in life.
I worked with Dionne Warwick, did shows with Bette Midler, and then I did the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Springsteen at the Garden. It was all important stuff because you want people to know you can work, you can sing, and you can still look good!
I started out in this business in rock and roll bands and stumbled into drag. Drag just happened to be my vehicle for my creativity. So, you know, it's afforded me the opportunity to create new shows, to make music.
I think the '60s was a great time for music, especially for rock and roll. It was the era of The Beatles, of The Stones, and then later on The Who and Zeppelin. But at one point in the '70s, it just kind of became... mellow.
I've always played every amp I've ever had full up, because rock and roll is supposed to be played loud. Also, that's how you get your sustain.
The problem for me, still today, is that I write purely with one dramatic structure and that is the rite of passage. I'm not really skilled in any other. Rock and roll itself can be described as music to accompany the rite of passage.
It was always my belief that rock and roll belonged in the hands of the people, not rock stars.
I guess there's enough information out there to support that I'm a crazy, wild dude and rock and roll and this, that and the other. And there's enough information to support that, you know, I'm a single father, that, you know, has been a pretty standup guy in his community and pretty private about that stuff.
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.
I love old school rock and roll.
In terms of rock and roll, I'm often drawn to louder, rougher stuff; maybe that's my history as a punk rock wannabee showing itself! Honestly, though, I'm not one of those people who listens to music constantly. I really love silence.
The whole world loves American movies, blue jeans, jazz and rock and roll. It is probably a better way to get to know our country than by what politicians or airline commercials represent.
What would rock and roll be without ambition, craziness, danger, and fun?
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.
Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.
The music we made then was so amateurish, compared to the rest of mainstream pop or rock and roll. But what differentiated us from what everybody else was doing in the business was the fact that you could tell that these people came from different reference areas.
If your album sells, that's cool, more people find out about you, more people get turned on to what we're really about-which is a live rock and roll band.
Obviously, any living musician born after 1960 has been touched by rock and roll. It's the music of our time, and it's 'in the air,' as Steve Reich would say. My experience of it is just really direct because I'm actually playing in a collaborative band.
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.
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.
I usually listen to classic rock and roll.
Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.
Rock and Roll is still asking people like me to live up to the old guard's concept of what success is but it doesn't mean anything.
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.
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.
To drive a car in rural America is freedom. Before I had a car, I'd never seen a rock and roll show, I'd never seen a comic or a show.