Quotes & Sayings About Bands

Everyone's gonna have their opinion, everyone's gonna have their favorite bands. The best way I can describe it is music is like food, either you love it, hate it, or are indifferent about it. Or you grow up and acquire a taste for it. — Phil Anselmo

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

As I kid, I was always jealous of the music that my favorite bands had written - but not really of how they played. So I'd daydream about having written songs, and this way above being able to perform them. — Jonny Greenwood

I do have electric guitars, because I've always believed, especially when I'm working in the studio with other bands as producer, that there should be a really nice Strat around. — Nick Mason

A sacred picture of Saint Anthony alone is one vertical, unwavering band of light. If a cockroach were near him, or a cocktail waitress, the picture would be two such bands of light. Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is just dead machinery. — Kurt Vonnegut

I smiled, reached into my pockets and pulled out a pair of ultrapowerful earplugs, the kind that are standard issue for skyway construction workers, artillery soldiers, and roadies for the thirty-five most popular teen boy bands. — John Zakour

I'm not one of those people who sits around knowing all bands and going to gigs all the time. — Nicholas Hoult

If it's a band I like, I just hope they will survive it all. And I'll admit that if it's crap music, I hope they won't and it'll go away. Simply because there are too many great bands who should be heard in their place. — Eddie Vedder

When your 18th, 19, 20 years old like we were at that time, its just like anyone else, you look at like Silverchair and bands like that that are super young and sound extremely derivative of bands that were out at that current moment. As they sounded like 'Nirvana in pajamas' as we called them, we sounded like Bon Jovi and Skid Row and Motley Crue, because we were only influenced by what was out at the time because we were so young — Butch Walker

Why is there always one bloke in these boy bands who looks like he came to fix the boiler and somehow got bullied into joining the group? — John Connolly

It's time for new bands to step up because KISS and Mtley Cre, Aerosmith, The [Rolling] Stones ... we're not always gonna be here. Who's gonna replace us? There's no one out there. It's sad. — Nikki Sixx

The world doesn't need more great messages, more great bands, or even more great church services. We need more of God's presence. — Kurtis Parks

Metallica is going to be one of those bands you look back on in the year 2008, that people will still listen to the way I still listen to Zeppelin and Sabbath albums. — Jason Newsted

Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away. — Thomas Beecham

I like all like classic rock bands like The Beatles and The Who and stuff and Led Zeppelin so I kinda dress like that. Kinda retro I guess. Well not retro but, like tight. I don't know. Like just jeans and shirts. I don't know. Kinda rock and roll I guess. — Drake Bell

There are bands that I got into when I was 15, when I was mad at my dad and just wanted to be different. I don't think I'd give those bands half a chance now. But I hold some kind of nostalgia for them that I won't let go. Bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag. — Pete Wentz

When I was growing up listening to music, it was 2004, when The Starting Line and Finch and The Used were kind of my favorite bands. — Kellin Quinn

It's hard for people to realize now, but my gosh, when I was in school, you could not name a group that was less cool than Kiss. Going in to school with a Kiss T-shirt, you were asking for ridicule. In '77, they were one of the biggest bands in the world, but by '80, there was a severe backlash. — Eddie Trunk

There came a time in everyone's life when they realized that in spite of how hard they'd been running from themselves, everywhere they went, there they were: Addictions and compulsions were nothing but marching bands of distraction, masking truths that were unpleasant, but ultimately undeniable. — J.R. Ward

I guess a lot of bands play around until they come up with something they like. — Greg Saunier

When I started making films I just decided "I'm the filmmaking equivalent of a garage band and I'll just make my garage band movies." But even the same musicians from garage bands would go to my movies and you could tell what they liked from the way that they dressed and they would be the first ones to walk out. — Guy Maddin

States are far less violent than traditional bands and tribes. Modern Western countries, even in their most war-torn centuries, suffered no more than around a quarter of the average death rate of nonstate societies, and less than a tenth of that for the most violent one. — Steven Pinker

We just wanted to get as far away from the rap-rock scene as possible, because its been done and other bands do it better than us anyway. — Adam Rich

I hope we can keep doing it this way - making music and art that are pure products of our influences while not really having to let the whole celebrity side of it get in the way. Then maybe more virtual bands will come out and do the same thing. — Damon Albarn

There's no leader of this band, and there never will be. That's the key. You can't control how the public perceives you-people see rock'n'roll bands as the guitar player and the singer. — Shannon Hoon

So by the time the 60s rolled in that became a huge art form in its own right with bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Hendrix doing total concept albums, same thing with Pink Floyd. — DJ Spooky

When I was a kid, a lot of my parents' friends were in the music business. In the late '60s and early '70s - all the way through the '70s, actually - a lot of the bands that were around had kids at a very young age. So they were all working on that concept way early on. And I figured if they can do it, I could do it, too. — Slash

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that's not something I could do. — David Byrne

Hey bands, you're all welcome to fly me to some exotic location and I'll record you there, Y'know that right? You don't have to come to this God forsaken place. Hope I can visit you all in Australia one of these days that would be hot! We'll talk again soon. — Jim Diamond

not only did foil fail to block radio waves, it actually amplified certain frequencies - notably frequency bands allocated to the U.S. government for GPS communications. — Rob Brotherton

I hated it so much as a child. I just didn't like it when punk bands went metal, it really bothered me. It was happening left and right in the 1980s. It started I think with D.C. bands - G.I., Soul Side, they went metal. Right at that time, R.E.M. was coming out, these more kinda feminine bands, and I was more drawn to that than to go metal. And you remember MTV, with the bad metal. But even Metallica, it just wasn't my direction. — Stephen Malkmus

If this war is not fought with the greatest brutality against the bands both in the East and in the Balkans then in the foreseeable future the strength at our disposal will not be sufficient to be able to master this plague. — Wilhelm Keitel

When I was in high school, I listened to a lot of death metal bands. — Amy Lee

If I go see a band, and they play, like, zero from any of their old albums, I'm very happy about that. I do not want to see the bands of my youth playing the songs of my youth. I hate that. — John Darnielle

At the battle of the bands the loser's always the audience. — Demetri Martin

Words tend to last a big longer than things, but eventually they fade too, along with the pictures they once evoked. Entire categories of objects disappear - flowerpots, for example, or cigarette filters, or rubber bands - and for a time you will be able to recognize those words, even if you cannot recall what they mean. But then, little by little, the words become only sounds, a random collection of glottals and fricatives, a storm of whirling phonemes, and finally the whole thing just collapses into gibberish. — Paul Auster

I was brought up on choirs and brass bands. They formed the music of my childhood. When I heard the Treorchy Male Choir at the Royal Variety Performance it brought back such happy memories. You have your own eminent place in the history of British music. You stand for excellence in a great tradition and your work for charity is both an example and an inspiration. — Michael Parkinson

I played a lot of music all throughout my life, actually, but in high school I was in marching band and all the bands. So, I was big into music, I was big into drawing and sculpture, and all these different things. — Kirsten Lepore

As three unwavering bands of light, we were simple and separate and beautiful. As
machines, we were flabby bags of ancient plumbing and wiring, of rusty hinges and
feeble springs. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I hope the Canada Pops can play in E and A. I do 'Forty Days' and 'Bo Diddley'. I don't change songs, just bands. — Ronnie Hawkins

Growing up I played in garage bands and cover bands with my older brother, and he got us a gig opening up for some hippie jam band. I was 15. I felt like such an adult! — Charles Kelley

I was more influenced by players like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen than by the guys in southern rock bands. — Dimebag Darrell

though. Our Azadian friends are always rather nonplussed by our lack of a flag or a symbol, and the Culture rep here - you'll meet him tonight if he remembers to turn up - thought it was a pity there was no Culture anthem for bands to play when our people come here, so he whistled them the first song that came into his head, and they've been playing that at receptions and ceremonies for the last eight years." "I thought I recognized one of the tunes they played," Gurgeh admitted. The drone pushed his arms up and made some more adjustments. "Yes, but the first song that came into the guy's head was 'Lick Me Out'; have you heard the lyrics?" "Ah." Gurgeh grinned. "That song. Yes, that could be awkward." "Damn right. If they find out they'll probably declare war. Usual Contact snafu. — Iain M. Banks

I think bands will actually make more money without record companies; a much bigger share of the money will go to the bands. You won't have record shops taking 40 percent of the money. You won't have record labels taking 40 percent of the money. So they don't have to sell as many albums as they used to in the past. So it's not necessarily a bad thing if record companies disappear. — Richard Branson

Instead of taking the 'I'm cool, I hope you adore me' path (with my music), I chose the path of how to connect. I think that's the reason a lot of people feel a deeper connection with our band than other bands, and I also feel that's why people polarize on us. If you don't get it, it seems preposterous; if you do get it, it's really heavy
it has a weight to it. — Billy Corgan

There were no good bands in my town. You know, there's like this magic town where every kid started a band in high school, and half of them were good and have careers based on relationships built at that time? That wasn't what my life was like at all. — Autre Ne Veut

We didn't go for music that sounded like blues, or jazz, or rock, or Led Zeppelin, or Rolling Stones. We didn't want to be like any of the other bands. — Michael Giles

I played trumpet in the school bands. I learned things I liked to play on my trumpet, but I didn't learn why this note goes with this note and why it produces that sound. Or how to create tension in the composition. — Flea

So when bands work with me and it's 10 o'clock, usually you'd have to be getting out of the studio, we could go on until 2 in the morning cause it's my place! — Billy Sherwood

There are loads of bands I'd love to produce. — Alex Kapranos

It's the band that really counts and not our egos. Egos probably destroyed more bands than anything else did, and that's something we want to avoid at all costs. We want to give the audience something real, something spectacular, and if it would be about egos, it would hardly be worth their time. — Chester Bennington

Those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying. — Douglas Adams

We invest far off places with a certain romance ... Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game; none of them lasts for ever. Your own life, or your bands, or even your species - might be owed to a restless few, drawn by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands, and new worlds. — Carl Sagan

Kansas City, I would say, did more for jazz music, black music, than any other influence at all. Almost all their joints that they had there, they used black bands. Most musicians who amounted to anything, they would flock to Kansas City because that's the place where jobs were plentiful. — Jesse Stone

I was never too interested in high school. I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me. Except, of course, I could go see bands, and that was the kick. I used to go to Cleveland just to see any band. So I was in love a lot of the time, but mostly with guys in bands that I had never met. For me, knowing that Brian Jones was out there, and later that Iggy Pop was out there, made it kind of hard for me to get too interested in the guys that were around me. I had, uh, bigger things in mind. — Chrissie Hynde

Before you could actually have face-lifts, they would pull your skin around the back of your head with rubber bands, where they would tape it. And then you'd have to wear a wig over it to hide the rubber bands. It was not the most comfortable. — Rob Lowe

When I was 20, in 1957, and maybe you would say I was old enough to know better, but nevertheless, I was completely nuts about Buddy Holly. And I loved pop bands that had absolutely no intellectual pretensions whatsoever. I loved the Monkees. — Tom Stoppard

We live in a culture bound by sin like bands of iron. Moral stories, quaint maxims, and life lessons shared from the heart of a beloved pulpiteer or spiritual life coach have no real power against such darkness. We need preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ who know the Scriptures, and by God's grace face any culture with the cry, 'Thus saith the Lord!' — Paul Washer

Musically, I have more things in common with tons of bands that have no female members. — St. Vincent

Daltrey was by all accounts the toughest man in the Who; maybe the toughest man in London. Filled with blue collar attitude, he strutted around the stage, screaming out the rage of a century of London's dead end lives, roaring like a young lion trapped in a decadent, dying England. Townsend wrote prettily, daydreaming foolishly individualistic dreams of artistic expression, but it was Roger's sledghammer voice that smashed the skulls of the enemy. — Dave Marsh

There's a difference between music that's original and music that's retro. A lot of bands now are kind of retro 70s whether it's Kraut-rock or ... I've heard people suggest that we're kind of retro 80s. — Bill Orcutt

I didn't want to make a record that's just drones or completely experimental. A lot of the time bands that make this psychedelic style of music are just a bunch of dudes hanging out together and jamming. — Tamaryn

A lot of bands mature, which means they get square; they start delivering messages. Hey, you got a message, use Western Union. — David Lee

I think the U.K. is an amazing place and has been extremely good to me. Some of my favorite and most-listened-to bands are from England. I have met many good people there and have been in front of some of the most loyal audiences I have ever encountered. — Henry Rollins

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn't see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records. — Dave Grohl

I recently realized that Television has influenced a lot of English bands. Echo and the Bunnymen, U2, Teardrop Explodes - it's obvious what they've listened to and what they're going for. When I was sixteen I listened to Yardbirds records and thought, "God, this is great." It's gratifying to think that people listened to Television albums and felt the same. — Tom Verlaine

The sudden and abrupt deletion of all individuals occupying the lower bands of the Tone Scale from the social order would result in an almost instant rise in the cultural tone and would interrupt the dwindling spiral into which any society may have entered. — L. Ron Hubbard

The patches are the stories. Hold onto that. And the muddy zigzag of ducktape against the cracked doorglass. There's four kids who sleep here, a nuff for the fingers on each otherses hands. There's room in each of them for one important thing. They're a band. It's not they're in a band. They're a band. Four spikes of ducktape, up and down, like mountain peaks or a sawblade. Every band's got a sign, something to sew on your jacket, gouge on the wall at a show. Four spikes up and down say MEATHEADS, and you picked a fucked window to knock at, tourist. They're the best band in the world. — Noah Wareness

I think the biggest faults that bands tend to have in terms of drama or breaking up is bands don't learn people's personalities. When you spend as much time with people obviously it's going to rub off, and you are going to get to know the way people are. You can make sure day to day people are accommodated to and people feel positive about the experience, then you can stay together as a band, at least that is my opinion. — Andy Biersack

Our greatest hope comes from the knowledge that the Savior broke the bands of death. His victory came through His excruciating pain, suffering, and agony. He atoned for our sins if we repent. — James E. Faust

You want a showman, go see rock 'n' roll bands today. You want to have a shamanistic experience, get psychedelic, then you watch The Doors. — Ray Manzarek

I don't want to know everything about bands, I want to have some mystique remain because sometimes when you get all of this information you realize that they are just people and that actually takes away a little bit from the aura of somebody. — John Bush

What do you think of boybands?"
I avoided eye contact, put my hands in my pockets, and shrugged.
"Not my thing, really." What was he getting at?
He chortled, and continued. "They are all the same. They've all got a lead singer whose head is stuck up his own arse, then a hard one who gets into trouble, an ugly one who wants to be taken seriously, and always, without exception, there's a gay one. — Eddie De Oliveira

I was playing in bands before high school even. My first band I was in at 14. And we were playing just Beatles. — Dan Fogelberg

I think some bands thrive on the idea of changing instruments. When they're off their real instrument, the ability to go very far from the original idea is reduced. — Tom Waits

I'm a bass player from way back and Paul is a guitar player and we've been in many bands. — Adam Jones

I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet. — Bobby McFerrin

James, that's a bad situation. I'm not saying it's not repairable, but it's pretty far. When you go from being in one of the best bands in the world to some cover band ... as far as I'm concerned, he was playing down at the pub. — Billy Corgan

I hate how all the hip hop bands of today will put crazy sound effects into their songs. You know what I mean, like a police or ambulance siren in a tune? Because I could own the CD, I could listen to it 50 gamillion times in my car - I still fall for it every time. — Doug Benson

When I was in top 40 bands, I always had to learn new material and new styles. — Kenneth Edmonds

There were a lot of gifted amateurs in my day. Most of the kids now play fantastically well. I think there are so many bands around now who might get there, but it's a tougher journey. — Nick Mason

That's why I think it hurt us, whereas these other bands [I'm assuming he means the other Big 3 -Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica] they kept doing their thing, just METAL. METAL. METAL. METAL. We didn't do that, we took a little but of a turn. — Charlie Benante

Just getting movies made is difficult because it takes a lot of money; I mean, it costs more money to make one movie than most bands will spend on every single record of their entire career; it's a huge undertaking. — Rob Zombie

I don't know a lot about New Zealand except that it is beautiful! All of my friends in bands who have toured there have said great things about it so I hope I can go perform there soon! — Dia Frampton

I smiled at his hair. It was standing out all over the place, wherever it had escaped the elastic bands holding the mask on. "Take — Elle Casey

Texas is a hotbed of insanely good bands and musicians. — Henry Rollins

I always had this dream to make a solo record. I told my mom when I was 7 years old, but I just ended up being in bands. I'm a free spirit. I follow my heart, and it's led me to where I am. — Fergie

We had a sunset of a very fine sort. The vast plain of the sea was marked off in bands of sharply-contrasted colors: great stretches of dark blue, others of purple, others of polished bronze; the billowy mountains showed all sorts of dainty browns and greens, blues and purples and blacks, and the rounded velvety backs of certain of them made one want to stroke them, as one would the sleek back of a cat. — Mark Twain

I know when I started I would have been happy to sound like the Beatles or Joe Tex or whoever. You want to sound like most bands, you want to sound like their records and that's how you learn your chops. — Jon Anderson

For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16, and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that. — Henry Rollins

I'd been bumming around in bands since my school days. — Rick Astley

I mean people have compared us to like the Grateful Dead and all these like psychedelic sixties bands. — Jon Fishman

I know that starting out as a young band, it's really easy to get lost with bands that sound the same or with the plethora of music that's out there. — Kellin Quinn

A lot of guys get slammed pretty hard. I do think there's a tendency with women performers to just sort of write them off. The "Flavor of the Month" kind of thing. Or as a novelty, because I do think women in bands are still considered a novelty, or a little confection. — Nina Gordon

Usually bands with violins - it's this little, poorly amplified looking kind of futile on stage, and that's not the way that my music is put together. — Andrew Bird

I lived at the Gramercy Park Hotel for about 10 years. It was terrific. It was a pleasantly run-down hotel of the '70s and '80s with a mix of older, rent-controlled apartment dwellers, Europeans and new wave and punk bands. The room service was great, the hamburger was terrific, and they had a doctor who made house calls. — Paul Shaffer

I do love dance music. I love Daft Punk. I mean, I was a child in the '80s, so bands like the Eurythmics and just so many great '80s bands were dance bands, but they had the whole soul thing happening, too. — Corin Tucker

In the year 3,000,002,012 the Andromeda Galaxy may collide with our Milky Way. At first this sounds miserable, like a collision of two bird flocks. But galaxy members fly farly, not tip to tip. In a galactic collision the stars do not actually collide - as with crisscrossing marching bands, only the interstices collide. (Oh to be like a galaxy, to mingle without wrecking. But then we would have to be composed of so much more sky.) The spaces between stars are so wide that thousands of galaxies have to converge before the stars will crash. — Amy Leach

When Black Flag and DOA and all those bands were touring in the early 80s, it was kind of a forest and you just kind of got your way through it. Now it's like a six lane highway with Starbucks every twenty meters. That's just civilization. — Henry Rollins

Real bands save fans, real fans save bands. — Michael Clifford