Just the other day I pulled out this old cassette of Ragged Glory and I popped it into my cassette player and I was digging it. They were just a great rock and roll band, one that presents the song ahead of everything else - there's no grand idea or ...
It's funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: 'So, what does it take to make it?' Well, first explain to me what you mean by 'making it': Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?
You can find old Jewish newspapers from Detroit that have my promotional ad in them. It was a totally insane time in my life. Paul Rudd was also a bar mitzvah emcee, you know? It was like being a local rock star in Detroit.
I don't blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they'll realize there's more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.
People don't realize it, but no one lives that rock and roll life 24-7. They think it's hundreds of bottles of champagne flowing and private jets and money. But there's a lot of time when you're traveling - time to think, time to be lonely. Sometimes...
I wanted to be a rock star. I dreamed of it, and that's all I dreamed of. To be more accurate, I wanted to be a pop star. This was in the late '80s. And mostly, I wanted to be the fifth member of Depeche Mode or Duran Duran.
If you listen to the way I speak and watch the way I conduct myself - there's nothing about me that's rock n' roll. It's like, 'Hello, I'm in a rock n' roll band'. 'No, you're a narc.'
With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.
I always figure hey, look, I'm not a rock star, I'm an actor. I'm somebody who's meant to be other people and I'm not meant to be here representing myself. I'm happier when I'm presenting myself as other characters.
When I embraced the rock hat, when I put it on two or three years ago, when I realized I'm gonna go and make really focused rock albums, it felt like wearing an old shoe. It was a perfect fit.
If we could sell 100,000 units every album, that would rock. We'd have a big cult following, we'd have a built-in fanbase so we could pretty much play anywhere, people would show up and rock out.
As a performing group, the Beatles began by playing old rock favorites, for dancing, to tough audiences in Liverpool and Hamburg. When they began writing seriously, they discovered that they couldn't compose in the early American rock tradition.
I was at the radio station all the time and on the air all the time. I met John Travolta and a lot of the other big '70s icons. Shaun Cassidy sang 'Da Do Ron Ron' to me onstage. I thought I was a rock star; I had an all-access-pass childhood.
I can rock out anything. I mean, I can rock out a little 'Time After Time'. I can do a little 'Grease Lightning'. It depends on the mood, but we do go karaoke, my friends and I in Los Angeles, and it's a lot of fun.
Sir Bernard Pellegrin: Do you no good to go poking around under rocks, Justin. Some very nasty things live under rocks, especially in foreign gardens.
We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran ...
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.
I never really thought in terms of the concept of being a rock star - being around people like that just seemed like normal day-in-the-life stuff to me. Those were just the surroundings I grew up in.
I really don't feel the need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because, at the end of the day, it's just somebody's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have a particular process, and they're welcome to do it however they want to do it.
I grew up off the grid in Vernon, and I saw my parents work hard every day, as teachers but also while farming and building a log home. So from a young age I knew the value of hard work.
I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at it, you'll have a chance to tap into something deep. But the fact remains that good sentences are hard won. Any writer worth a lick knows constructing a sentence, a paragr...
