In the early to mid-'90s, everywhere I turned, someone had died. It wasn't just people in bands. It was the people I was hanging out with. At some point, I thought, 'I may be heading down that road.'
It's been said that I formed The Wallflowers to hide my name but, really, I've always wanted to be in a band - right from the day my friends and I soundproofed a garage with bed-covers for our first rehearsal.
I had done a lot of rock 'n' roll photography when I was in college. I was one of many photographers who worked for The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and all of these rock 'n' roll bands.
We used to have our own plane with the band's name on the side. It was a dream come true. You drive to a local airport. There's none of this checking in stuff; you just get on the plane.
Most bands have a sound that they're already identified with, so for the producer it becomes a process of helping them find their muse in the studio to make a record that will not only satisfy them artistically, but will also do something in the mark...
My fellow band members don't discuss their loved ones, and I don't feel that just because I am gay, I should have to discuss mine!
A very common thing these days is people show up and they ask us in the band to sign with a Sharpie right on their skin and they go get it tattooed the next day. Then they'll show up at another show and they'll have their tattoo.
I totally have this thing for Harry Styles from One Direction. But, like, I could totally date the rest of the band as one. I mean, if I could date all of them at one time, that'd be, like, ideal. They seem pretty close, but who knows? Maybe not that...
I saw Mercury Prize-winners Alt-J for the first time recently, touring their debut album 'An Awesome Wave,' and I'm still riding the high: they're the most musically dynamic and exciting band to have poured tune into my lug holes live since Bellowhea...
And I was very comfortable with this band even when we disagreed. It takes a long time to feel comfortable enough to disagree with somebody. When everything happened, it just was really confusing. It's like our weaknesses were nurtured and brought ou...
I think when you follow a band, you're following a - and I don't like to use the term 'brand,' but you are following a kind of style, if you like. So I think you have to accept that there will be different people involved from time to time.
A few years ago, one of our singles got beaten out by Better Than Ezra. The label could only have one band at a time being taken to the right people at radio, and they opted for Better Than Ezra instead of us. Who knows.
I wanted to make the kind of records that I heard in the discos that I danced in at that time. Funky, electronic sounds, while the musicians in the band were more rock oriented. This I suppose created the sound we know as Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
To actually put the time and energy into an album that would be better than Pull would be a hell of a lot of work, because I took that band really seriously, way more seriously than people took us. If you go back and listen to the records, you can he...
When Stevie and I joined the band, we were in the midst of breaking up, as were John and Christine. By the time Rumours was being recorded, things got worse in terms of psychology and drug use. It was a large exercise in denial - in order for me to g...
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.
First off, I don't want anyone to think I'm this huge thing in Japan. Every group from here that's made any records over any length of time - even indie bands - have a Cheap Trick effect in Japan.
To do an extreme metal record is something that is well within my capacity as a musician to write stuff out of the box, write stuff that's probably more extreme than the band I'm in at the present time, and it's something that needs to come out of me...
I'd never imagined myself in a band. So the fact that I've had such a long career without really naturally pursuing it is really astounding. It's taken me a long time to accept what I do for a living and actually feel like I have anything of value to...
Rob: Some people never got over Vietnam or the night their band opened for Nirvana. I guess I never got over Charlie.
We went into that knowing that we were never going to sell a major record 'cause we didn't sound like these bands, so I just thought this was an opportunity for us to make the kind of records that we wanted and make some money at the same time.
