Rock Musician Quotes & Sayings

Drugs and sex go hand in hand when you're a rock and roll musician. Whereas if I were a violinist, it might be a little different. — Slash

I'm forty-two," he said. "That's eighty-four in musician years. — Monica Wood

I always liked playing music and I always wanted to be good at playing guitar. I always saw myself as an old man living in the mountains playing a guitar, but I didn't really turn that into a desire to be a professional musician or a singer or a rock star or anything like that. — Brett Dennen

Is the phrase 'pay' or 'play the piper'
I inquire, why
'Cause I admire a desire to flip the switch
Yeah make a way to face the music like
Life savings for a mosh pit riot
Listen to a mix
Rock the tickets, higher volume
Velocity which shakes a cockpit's pilot — Criss Jami

Grammar is to a writer what anatomy is to a sculptor, or the scales to a musician. You may loathe it, it may bore you, but nothing will replace it, and once mastered it will support you like a rock. — B. J. Chute

I'm the lady by day, and I'm Gaga by night. And I'm always going to be that way, because it's a testament to your discipline as a musician. I do like to drink, I like to get crazy, I like to go out with my friends, and I like to sing rock and roll. I used to go-go dance! And I like to be inspired by young artists, people like Millie who are outrageously hard, disciplined individuals. But at the end of the day I'm a classically trained pianist and I'm a singer, and that's what allows the girl that goes out at night to also go on stage with Tony Bennett at Lincoln Center. Because I know how to do it. — Lady Gaga

Legendary rock musician. Poet laureate of the working class. Voice of America's conscience. — Harrison Howe

I think some of the musicians are more like punk rock musicians. It's like an art as opposed to being a musician. It's definitely more radical psychedelic bands, more than anything. — Wayne Coyne

Bruce Springsteen's a rock star. Elton John is a rock star. I'm a folk musician. Honestly, I think that's true. — James Taylor

I always hesitate when people call me a musician.I have had no musical training. I can't play anything. I really think of myself as a performer. It's always been writing for me. I evolved with my band in rock 'n' roll through poetry, not through music. — Patti Smith

As a musician, you want the music in as many hands as you can get it into. More importantly, I want people to get the music for the fairest price, and in the most convenient way. And that's really turned into iTunes when you're talking about selling albums. — Kid Rock

I applied at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard after my band broke up. I really wanted to work there because it involved the love of my life, music. It was also located on the world famous Sunset Strip, a place I dreamed of going to ever since I was a teenager in the 80's to become a rock star. — K.D. Sanders

I liked rock music going back to the '60s, but I never ever had any desire to be a rock musician and when I started doing a band it was experimental music. — Glenn Branca

Steve Perry versus Arnel Pineda. At his confused expression, I explain, The guy on YouTube who gained a following for covering Journey songs ... then eventually became the new lead singer for the band? — Christina Lauren

That is sacrilegious. You just totally dissed man code. If we don't have man code, the world will fall apart."

Kip Paxton — Sasha Marshall

My father's a musician and my mother's a singer. My dad's originally from Brooklyn and he was a Latin percussionist so I've always had instruments around the house. He used to have a show like a 1950s rock and roll show with Little Richard music. They would do doo-wop songs and stuff like that. — Bruno Mars

I started playing guitar at the age of 8 or 9 years. Very early, and I was like already into pop music and was just trying to copy what I heard on the radio. And at a very early age I started experimenting with old tape recorders from my parents. I was 11 or 12 at that time and then when I was like 14 or 15 I had a punk band. I made all the classic rock musician's evolutions and then in the early nineties I bought my first sampler and that is how I got into electronic music, because I was able to produce it on my own. That was quite a relief. — Christian Fennesz

I didn't have any aspirations of becoming famous or successful; in fact I was scared to death of all that. I remember somebody once said that if a rock musician goes on tour, he goes insane. I was very impressionable and I carried this useless weight of fear around with me about going on tour, all because of this thing somebody said. — Steve Vai

I know what that tastes like, to be a rock-and-roll star - to have a limousine, to have girls screaming when they see you, girls trying to cut my hair, get a piece of me. But I don't walk around with a concept of myself as a rock-and-roll star, and certainly not as a musician, because I really can't play anything, except primitively. — Patti Smith

Growing up, I fantasized about being a rock musician and that somehow it would be really easy. I didn't realize that it's so much work. — Sean Lennon

The ability for a woman to orally satisfy somebody in a rock band, that's important to a rock 'n' roll musician. — Chad Kroeger

If you were to ask me, 'What the hell does a musician have in common with a restaurant?' I would say a huge amount. It's show time every day, it's a team of people, like, running a circus, which is running a rock-and-roll band. — Mick Fleetwood

I decided that in order to become a big famous rock star, I would need to write my very own songs instead of wasting my time learning other peoples music too much. It may act as an obstruction in developing your very own personal style. — Kurt Cobain

Basically, this industry is mostly run by men, and I think women have a harder time ... I've had enough of the "Women in Rock" issues of magazines and all of that. There's no reason why we should have our own separate little genre; that's just ridiculous. Besides, what is the genre? I certainly don't fit into the whole "Lilith" thing (thank God), but I am a female musician. And there are enough other great females in music that don't have to fit into it, either. — Princess Superstar

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career. — Amy Ray

There was an intelligence about him (Joe Strummer) that allowed his band to change and evolve, just as Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols were disappearing up their own bondage trousers. And there was a generosity about Strummer, too, a warmth and humanity about the guy. He was a brilliant musician, a beautiful man, and a charismatic artist. There is a part of me that bitterly resents the fact that the Clash never replaced the Rolling Stones in rock music's hall of heroes. But the Clash were not about milking if for a lifetime ... I thought they were the greatest band I had ever seen. And, half a lifetime on, in a large part of my soul, I still do ... They changed lives. They certainly changed mine. Because they made me believe that, with passion and commitment and a bit of fire in your belly, you could be exactly the person you wanted to be. — Tony Parsons

A rock musician's career is short-lived. To extend it, you need to do other things to keep yourself fresh. — Nick Cave

Well, I've been a musician my whole life. When I was two, I would sing the theme from Star Wars in my crib; my mom taped it for proof. Then, when I was five, I asked for a violin. No one knew why I would want one, but my wish was granted and I ended up a classically trained fiddler by age 12. The only problem with that was, when you're a classical violinist, everybody expects you to be satisfied with playing Tchaikovsky for the rest of your life, and saying you want to play jazz, rock, write songs, sing your songs, hook up your fiddle to a guitar amp, sleep with your 4-track recorder, mess around with synths, dress like Tinkerbell in combat boots, AND play Tchaikovsky is equivalent to spitting on the Pope. — Emilie Autumn

Everybody has ideas. The vital question is, what do you do with them? My rock musician sons shape their ideas into music. My sister takes her ideas and fashions them into poems. My brother uses his ideas to help him understand science. I take my ideas and turn them into stories. — Avi

Can writing ever be taught? The best answer to that was given obliquely by the rock musician David Lee Roth. When asked if money could buy happiness he said, no, but with money you could buy the big boat and go right up to where the people were happy. With a teacher you can go right up to where the writing is done; the leap is made alone with vision, subject, passion, and instinct. So a writer comes to the page with vision in her heart and craft in her hands and a sense of what a story might be in her head. How do the three come together? My thesis is the old one: they merge in the physical writing - inside the act of writing, not from the outside. The process is the teacher. — Ron Carlson

It never was about the musician or the instrument - it was about the laser notes in a hall of mirrors, the music itself. It was going to change the world for the better and it has. Maybe not as fast or as much as we wanted, but it has and it still will. Whether your name is Mozart, or Django Reinhardt, or Robert Johnson, or Jimi Hendrix, or whoever is next; who you are doesn't matter so long as you can open that conduit and let the music come through. It is the burning edge, whatever it sounds like and whoever is playing it. It is the noisy, messy, silly, invincible voice of life that comes through the LP on the turn-table, the transistor radio, or the Bose in your new Lexus that makes you want to get up out of whatever you are stuck in and dance. It is Dionysus and the Maenads all over again. No one can control it and I pity whoever tries. I am old now and only a house cat sunning herself in the window - but I was a tigress once, and I remember. I still remember. — G.J. Paterson

I wasn't born with enough middle fingers. — Marilyn Manson

The idea of being a rock and roll musician sort of suited my talents and mentality. The freedom was great, but then I found out I wasn't free. I'd got boxed in ... The whole Beatle thing is just beyond comprehension ... subconsciously I was crying for help. — John Lennon

I'm not really a musician. I'm a performer, and I love rock n' roll. I've embraced rock n' roll because it encompasses all the things I'm interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism - all of these things can be found in rock n' roll. — Patti Smith

Folk musicians have a lot of the same self-importance, but they're way more cruel and jealous than rock musicians - I know this for a fact because I used to be a folk musician. — Christopher Guest

Anyone who's got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some '50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That's it, really - I'm not a musician, I'm not a singer. — Aaron Johnson

I went to art school and never thought I'd be a musician, but then punk rock came along in the late 70s and kind of ruined my life. So I quit art school to get involved in music and I've been doing it ever since. — Michael Gira

The big corporations and the big companies turned musicians into factory workers on an assembly line. — Ray Davies

I don't have any desire to do something that sounds explicitly rock. Like, I don't have a burning need to be a rock musician. I feel like I've taken that as far as I can take it, for me. — Kim Gordon

You can take and nail two sticks together like they've never been nailed together before and some fool will buy it. — George Carlin

The most profound voice of any musician I have ever heard. Joe (Strummer) took his message to the world, and the world listened. He managed to influence more than one generation with his innovative and determined manner, and I am not alone in repeatedly turning to his thoughts and lyrics when searching for inspiration. The Clash was the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2. — Bono

It's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I'm not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n' roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty - I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could. — Patti Smith

Every generation of rock musician will understand that we wouldn't be anywhere without the support of teenagers buying the records. — Roger Daltrey

One thing about Kurt [Cobain] is before he was a musician, and before he was a rock star, he was an artist, and an artist with a capital A. What that means is that he had to create. It wasn't something that he chose to do - it chose him. — Brett Morgen

I've been making electronic music for twenty some odd years but, because I grew up playing in punk rock bands, when I started touring, I thought in order to be a viable touring musician I had to do it with a band. I would DJ or tour with a full rock band. — Moby

I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I'm in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part. — Eddie Van Halen

Occasionally I hear a band that blows me away. For instance, there's a musician in Oakland named Weasel Walter who has a band called the Flying Luttenbachers. Go see the Flying Luttenbachers when they're in your town. He's one of the greatest rock composers who ever lived, and he's struggling and living like a poverty-stricken hermit. — Glenn Branca

Many people think of me as just a riff guitarist, but I think of myself in broader terms. As a musician I think my greatest achievement has been to create unexpected melodies and harmonies within a rock and roll framework. And as a producer I would like to be remembered as someone who was able to sustain a band of unquestionable individual talent, and push it to the forefront during its working career. I think I really captured the best of our output, growth, change and maturity on tape - the multifaceted gem that is Led Zeppelin. — Jimmy Page

My musical background is like almost every non classical musician in the world. One day a special record was heard and that was it. I was hooked, started trying to play various instruments and was off to bar land to become a rock star. What else? — Kevin Johnson

I see that you are working this vampire angle with some success. And kudos. Lots of girls love that sensitive-undead thing. But I'd drop the whole musician angle if I were you. Vampire rock stars are played out, and besides, you can't possible be very good. — Cassandra Clare

I have always felt I was more accurately a Hard Rock musician. — Geddy Lee

My life won't be a series of either/ors - musician or actor, rock or country, straitlaced or rebellious, this or that, yes or no. The real choices in life aren't that simple. — Miley Cyrus

I said to myself a long time ago that I didn't want to be that hanging-on-for-too-long, aging-rock-musician guy, and that's why I sort of got away from music. — Eric Avery

Some people think I'm a rock 'n' roll musician and some think I'm a jazz musician but, for me, there is no difference. — Georgie Fame

People feel they have to live that stereotypical lifestyle in order to be a rock star. You don't have to shoot heroin and act a certain way to be a rock and roll musician. — Lenny Kravitz

My priorities now a a musician are so different now than they were as a kid. Everyone wants to be a rock star, and I wanted that too; I wanted to be on magazines and be running around the world and having all the fun. — Blake Judd

I grew up in a world that told girls they couldn't play rock and roll. — Joan Jett

If I write songs and I think they sound good, then that's it. That's what I do. I'm not a technical musician, which is fine for rock and roll. — Creed Bratton

Most of the EDM tracks right now are not very musical, they have one note that keeps playing. You really don't need to be a musician to do records like this, so I think me playing guitar for so many years and listening to rock 'n' roll and real music helps me when I work with vocalists like Lana Del Ray and Miley Cyrus. — Cedric Gervais

I don't think there is a musician today that hasn't been affected by Elvis' music. His definitive years - 1954-57 - can only be described as rock's cornerstone. He was the original cool. — Brian Setzer

I grew up around music. My father was a professional musician. We used to have a trailer house that we travelled in. I've always loved music. Started out loving to sing to the standards and songs of the early 50s, then that interest shifted to rock and roll, Motown, folk. — Timothy B. Schmit

Every musician, their goal in life is to play music that people love, and I've accomplished my goal. I was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and left that chapter of my life and those people in the past. Good and bad, I've loved and am thankful for that chapter. — Steven Adler