The songs were really complicated. I used to meet people in bar bands who were trying to play our songs and they were really struggling with it. Technically it was really difficult stuff.
When people say 'stadium songs,' it's really negative. All the festival headliners, I've realised, are usually the worst bands.
They tried to get me to use a pick when I first joined the band. They had certain things they thought were appropriate. I tried to adapt as much as I could.
I'd wear any of my private attire for the world to see. But I would rather have an open flesh wound than ever wear a band aid in public.
The rock star stuff never came up for us. The Band was never attacked by groupies before, during or after any show that we ever played.
My brother Leon started it all. He played the piano. In school they made me leader of the orchestra because I played the violin, but I followed Leon and the boys in his jazz band around.
There's a whole apparatus for indie bands now, but back in the eighties it was just getting built. The early people really took it on the chin.
When I joined the band, being that I was going to take this up as a profession, I realized that there were no two finer guitar players in the world that I'd rather play with.
There was a band in Australia named Midnight Oil, and they were a very, very political, and they literally hit you over the head with a hammer. U2 sometimes can hit you over the head with a rubber hammer.
Everybody has their own appreciation of the Beach Boys, depending on where they're coming from with their musical tastes, so we tried to be representative of all eras and of everybody in the band and their contributions.
I was producing demos for a band that was called Physical Ed. Out of production of demos I went and did a few jam sessions with then in Northern California clubs, but I never actually toured with them.
Whenever I come here, I pretend I'm living in the future and the atmosphere is irradiated and wild bands of biodiesel bikers rule the dusty surface.
I don't think anyone has exhausted the range of sound possible in a conventional rock band, but people do become slaves to their own easiest techniques.
If it wasn't for KISS, there would be no Guns N' Roses. Bands like that made Guns N' Roses. We were five guys with five personalities and five different influences. The stars were aligned for us.
I had to get out of my record deal that I signed with my previous band and get a full solo record deal going so, with all of the paperwork that, that entails it did take a while.
That's why it's called Sebastian Bach. I mean, it's a permanent band, pretty much, but if I jam with other people, it just makes a better album, I think.
I know there's bands that might write something that sounds like The Smiths, and they'll go, 'Oh, it sounds like The Smiths, we've got to make it sound not like The Smiths.'
Nothing's more exciting than a day in a studio with a string section - or more ruinously expensive. So it's good to feed that habit away from the band, especially if it means more experience for the next Radiohead string day.
If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.
I think early on in my career, I was heavily inspired by bands like Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept, and films of David Lynch, for example, where the soundscape plays a very important role in the listening experience.
I am disappointed because nobody is talking about food and agriculture. They're talking about the diets of children, but they're talking about Band-Aids. We're not seeing a vision.
