Radio was my life growing up. Then, I started in our family band with my uncle, my father, my aunt and my little brother. We would go to The Chicken Box and all the bars and play.
The thing that helped me get into the film business was that I went to school in Athens, Georgia and managed to get on, um, working on music videos for a band called R.E.M. and that kind of opened up a lot of doors for me.
In 1984, showing extraordinary courage, a group of Guatemalan wives, mothers and other relatives of disappeared people banded together to form the Mutual Support Group for the Appearance Alive of Our Relatives.
I just got a call one day from Ringo asking me if I wanted to go out on the tour. It was as simple as that. He was putting together this band and he heard of me in the context of doing this and he gave me a call. I jumped at the chance.
When certain bootleg companies started off and they would take maybe ten per cent of whatever they got and help fuel new bands, which I'm cool with, I think that's a good idea. Most of the record companies are not doing that.
A huge thing for me growing up was going to see my favorite bands and feeling like, 'Okay, cool, they proved themselves and did things in a special way.' That's the most important thing.
I just think if I can go from being a homeless kid with a dream of being in the biggest band in the world and making that happen, I can do a lot of other cool stuff, too.
Even as a kid, if I would come across something cool in the record store, that would be how I found out about bands. It's kind of the same way these days. In a way even less because there are no record stores to go to anymore.
I've always loved the mixture of crushing live drums with a programmed groove, that really cool blend, like in the verse there's a really funky drum beat that is programmed then it comes in to the chorus; you've got that enormous human feel where the...
People resist change; if they like something, then they want you to keep doing it over and over - but I think if you like what a particular band or artist does, then you should want to see what they're going to do next.
Sadly, I've seen a lot of bands hit that sort of peak and then eventually start supporting again, you know, which we will never do. We always put a lot of thought into the way that we are going to go, and we always change.
If you don't know one thing about Kid Rock it's that he's loyal. His band has been together for a long time, he stands by his friends, and the guy still lives in his home state of Michigan.
It accumulates over the years and I've led so many bands of my own now and forced myself into new situations... You would hope that you play better and better - until you just get too feeble to do it anymore.
Call it holistic or holographic thinking, it's been quite effective imagining the world's problems are all right in front of you on a smaller scale with your band. You deal with those relationships, and that's where real major change begins.
This guy kept telling us that rock was the big thing, everyone's talking about the big thing, our band was the big thing. So he made us change our name to The Big Thing. Can you believe that?!
Because primarily of the power of the Internet, people of modest means can band together and amass vast sums of money that can change the world for some public good if they all agree.
I don't really know any other musicians like me. I grew up backstage with my dad who played in a post-war dance band, so I always feel at home at a venue.
Our greatest hope comes from the knowledge that the Savior broke the bands of death. His victory came through His excruciating pain, suffering, and agony. He atoned for our sins if we repent.
We have no general conceptual thrust for the band, other than trying to make music that keeps our interest. When things are novel, they are probably things we have discovered by accident or investigation rather than by design.
Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.
There were a lot of bad feelings when Lindsey first left the band. But there's been a lot of healing going on, growing up, maturing. The bond is a great deal stronger than what we first thought.
