When I got out of high school, I was in a blues band. It was the kind of music I was interested in, and listening to, mostly because it was becoming a vehicle for a generation of guitarists - like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Mike Bloomfield. And that...
After I moved with my mother to St. Louis, my older sister and I went to see Ike Turner, who was the hottest then. His music charged me. I was never attracted to him, but I wanted to sing with his band.
I was really sick of bands just ignoring the audience as a posture in rock music. And I think we fed off each other in terms of trying to engage the audience, not in a hammy way, but actually trying to be aware of the space that you are playing in an...
Women and men just aren't that different. Oh, we're different in some intriguing ways, and it can be fun to band together for all-gal or all-guy projects. But when it comes to the tragic mess Christ came to heal, we're pretty much the same.
There were definitely bands and musicians I liked that drove my mother insane. I probably liked them all the more for it! Bjork drove my mom nuts. What I listened to was actually pretty mom-friendly for the most part. I wasn't very rebellious.
Whether it's mending a failing company, fighting corruption, tackling disease, or rebuilding a marriage, the hardest problems defy just-add-water remedies. Indeed, slapping on a Band-Aid when surgery is needed usually just makes things worse.
People ask me about 'The Hurt Locker' a lot, and it's an incredible piece of filmmaking - as are 'Band of Brothers' and 'Platoon' and 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Apocalypse Now.' But they're not necessarily true to war in a literal sense. What they are,...
Penny Lane: We are not Groupies. Groupies sleep with rockstars because they want to be near someone famous. We are here because of the music, we inspire the music. We are Band Aids.
Ben Fong-Torres: [reading William's story] "I'm flying high over Tupelo, Mississippi... with America's hottest band... and we're all about to die." - Dark, lively.
Elwood: Tonight only, the fabulous Blues Brothers. Rhythm and Blues review. The Palace Hotel Ballroom. Route 16. Lake Wazzapamani. The fabulous Blues Brothers show band and review.
When I was 6 years old, I was in a rock band that was horrible called 'Dead End.' The name kind of described us. People liked us; we would go and perform at coffee houses and stuff.
I think of a band like Animal Collective where they really follow their own sound and I think that's a really important thing to do. You can find an audience if you can find your voice.
Wes Craven's 'Shocker' is one of my favorite soundtracks. I don't know where that movie stands in the critical eye of cinema, but it was a really fun movie because of all the bands that were part of it.
If journalists ask you again and again about the same bands, you'll end up saying you hate them just because you're so fed up with being asked all those stupid questions.
It's not important to how the band functions or to what we do. That's just many people's opinions on what they see. A lot of people project stuff on you, but that's okay.
I'm definitely responsible for coming in with some basic chord changes, or ideas. Everybody in the band looks to me to come up with the basic seed, so it's not very productive to come in with nothing.
When I published my first novel, 'Slammed,' I included lyrics at the beginning of each chapter from one of my favorite bands, The Avett Brothers. The overwhelmingly positive response from readers to those lyrics really surprised me.
It's a lot more comfortable, I must say. Ummm, I didn't think I'd be playing with another band, I kinda thought I was through with that, but I make an exception because they're nice people.
Over the years, I've had to learn to play. For example, when 'Lennon' was on Broadway, I learned my way around the guitar chords because originally we were all going to play the instruments without a band.
I took a private lesson, but it didn't really work out, so I went back to playing along with records. That's really the thing that got me into playing a lot - getting excited about playing along with my favorite bands like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
There are few people who define the word, 'rock star' better than U2's Bono. He's revered the world over not just for leading one of the biggest bands ever, but for his very public work on behalf of the underprivileged in Africa.
