Pop Bands Quotes & Sayings

Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community. — Steven Van Zandt

You never know that this is the moment when you're in the moment. When I was sixteen I moved to a smaller town in Vermont, and at that time I didn't have a band to play in. So I was forced to play in Top 40 bands and fraternity bands and wedding bands. That was all pop music, but I was listening to Weather Report and classical music. Then I went to Berklee College of Music in 1978, and you had Victor Bailey there, and Steve Vai. And suddenly I was among my ilk. — Stuart Hamm

He is more circus master than either composer or pop star. He is the frontman of one of Britain's best-loved bands of all time, co-creator of the world's most successful virtual band and the creative force behind records, operas and loose-fit projects that evoke not just England but Africa, north and sub-Saharan, China, the Middle East and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, America. Like all pop and rock stars who manage to maintain a level of success over numerous generations, Albarn seems to need change to survive. — Dylan Moore

I'm a huge Nirvana fan and I like seeing things that at first seem out of context, but actually they're one of the biggest bands in the world. I like to see pop culture, like punk or alternative culture, clash with some other type of culture. — Nick Zinner

So many of the bands that influenced me growing up were English, even if I didn't realise it. English pop ruled the world in the '80s! — CeeLo Green

I don't want to pooh-pooh modern pop. I appreciate that as well, but my personal favorite kind of music is guitar-based rock. I like grunge and garage bands and alternative music, but that's more my personal taste. — Al Yankovic

I did exactly what I wanted to do. It was always my intention to put a band together and be a band and not be about the solo pop guy. That was never me. All of the musicians that made me do what I wanted to do were bands. I didn't see it any other way. — Chris Daughtry

When bands come from that underground scene and go into the mainstream, people just hate it. And it blows my mind. If you're saying you don't like what pop culture is, then change it. And when someone does make an effort to change it, everyone rebels against it and hates it. You can't win. People just want that division to exist. They don't want that division to go away. — Laura Jane Grace

Every artist is different - the pop mentality is different than bands for me, because I'm playing a lot of the instruments. — Matt Squire

Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that's why garage bands started springing up everywhere. — Arlo Guthrie

My tastes range all over the place, from vocal standards to Motown to 70s funk & soul to 80s pop to film scores to artists like R.E.M., Ben Folds, Prince, Annie Lennox, the Police, Elvis Costello, Cat Stevens, the Ditty Bops, local bands that friends of mine are in, and the list goes on ... I have no single favorite genre or artist. — Stephanie D'Abruzzo

There was a time, from 1935-1946, when teenagers and young adults danced to jazz-orientated bands. When jazz orchestras dominated pop charts and when influential clarinettists were household names. This was the swing era. — Scott Yanow

We didn't gel with Poison and the Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi was the best of the pop metal bands, but we never fit in with the hair metal stuff. We were never as hip as the Chili Peppers. We were in the middle. — Gary Cherone

I really like Howler and an American band on Sub Pop called Jaill. There will always be new bands that I like, it's always been that way. I still go out to shows. One thing I don't like now is this idea that all singing needs to be expressed at maximum volume with so much bullshit sentimentality - it's pervading regular pop music. — Johnny Marr

You know what I think you get scared of more - especially me, after touring for so long and being in bands for so long - you start to associate certain behavior with the music. It's like people associate having a cigarette with having a cup of coffee, or lunch. — Iggy Pop

Musicians like James Blake were a big influence on me. How he uses his vocals is amazing. And then Yeasayer and Animal Collective, who aren't pop bands exactly, but they do something that is so catchy and undeniable and so much fun. — Lorde

With a pop album you can listen to one or two songs from it, but a music album is really an experience. It's not something a whole lot of rock bands do. — Dylan Baldi

When you look at bands like Take That, who have come back bigger than ever, you can see there will always be a market for good pop bands. — Shane Filan

My favorite records are by bands where the musicians are all playing like themselves, but those personalities connect in an exciting way and create music that is one cohesive unit. It's not catchy like a pop song, but it's a really cool song. — Dylan Baldi

With pop music, the format dictates the form to a big degree. Just think of the pop single. It has endured as a form even in the download age because bands conform to a strict format, and work, often very productively, within the parameters. — David Byrne

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

I lived in Italy for a number of years and I was really digging around trying to get my hands dirty, trying to learn about Italian music. And what I ended up gravitating towards was this stuff from the '50s and '60s and maybe early '70s, where there were these incredibly talented pop singers that weren't using pop bands. — Mike Patton

Sometimes I forget that the label's been around so long that some of the bands they're singing now might be influenced by the first wave of Sub Pop bands. Is there anyone on that label that you look up to or borrow from? — Hutch Harris

The '80s were the worst period. You had these horrible pop bands growing their hair and calling themselves metal. — Geezer Butler

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records. — Richard Branson

In the future, bands are going to have to offer more than a pop show. They are going to have to an offer a well presented theatre show — Syd Barrett

I was such a massive fan of all the '60s pop bands, but if I had to single out one band, it would definitely be The Beatles. — Paul Weller

I've always gravitated naturally towards a little bit of a heavier thing, having been in punk bands and metal bands before I ever got into pop. — Lights

We grew up with all the Fat Wreck Records and all the Epitaph bands, that era. We mixed it up together. We were never purists of being just pop or just pop-punk. We always wanted to blend everything that we love. — Chuck Comeau

I was in rock music in London when it was the height of Brit pop, with The Kinks revival and Suede and Blur and Oasis, and all of those really great bands that were of a certain style. If I'd really been smart and commercially minded, I would have just got myself a blazer and some Stay Press and some Fred Perry tops, and just gone out and tried to do it like everyone else. Instead, I did this ridiculous thing of trying to do this music. — Gavin Rossdale

I'd say that my musical influences are anywhere from pop-rock electronica, new age and classical. But I think that specifically, bands - I love Jem, I love Sigur Ross, I love David Gray, I love Elliot Smith ... a lot of different people. But I don't find lyrical inspiration from anybody. — Emmy Rossum

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