I've always wanted to do a movie that takes place in the 70's and was about rock and roll and getting high, like Dazed and Confused or Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.
You got to realize that the vision, the image, according to 1964 U.S. rock and roll standards, was mohair suit and tie, and nicey-nicey ol' boy next door.
I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice.
Rock is about finding who you are. You don't necessarily have to play your instrument very well at all. You can just barely get by and you can be in a rock band.
I left rock and roll professionally at about 49. That's too long as far as I'm concerned. Some people can do it; it depends on what you were.
When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame decided to open up the voting beyond their inner circle, to the actual fans, that's when I think everything changed.
In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.
Every town in America had at least one, two, or maybe three radio stations that played rock 24 hours a day. In England, we had a rock specialist on for two hours a week.
I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwriting. You sang songs, that's all. You sang other people's songs. That's all there were.
One Stab: She was like the water that freezes inside a rock and breaks it apart. It was no more her fault than it is the fault of the water when the rock shatters.
Roy Lee: Let them have outer space. We got rock 'n' roll.
Mick Shrimpton: As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.
Little Rock: Who's Bill Murray? Tallahassee: I've never hit a kid before. I mean, that's like asking who Gandhi is. Little Rock: Who's Gandhi?
Little Rock: Yes! But no she's not, she's not. She's only famous when she's Hannah Montana. When she's wearing the wig. So...
What are the symbols of American strength, wealth, power and modernity? Certainly not jazz and rock and roll, not chewing-gum or hamburgers, Broadway or Hollywood. It's their skyscrapers. Their Pentagon. Their science. Their technology.
There was a 'magic rock' my mom would lift up, and under the rock was a bunch of bugs. Roly-poly bugs and worms. Somehow I thought that it was a magical world of insects, and I wanted to go there. It was the same impulse as 'Pikmin' - I wanted to go ...
My all-time favorite rock and roll players were Scotty Moore, Chuck Berry and Franny Beecher, and I listened to the country playing of Merle Travis.
Then the early punk rock period with Television and the Ramones. That's what I loved- that's what I was listening to immediately prior to when I started to play.
Being a new band, I just can't think of a better way to get your name out to all of the Hard-Rock crowd than playing with twenty of the biggest Hard-Rock bands in the world.
The cliche of what a rock star is - there's something elitist about it. I never related to that. I'm an entertainer. I think of it as, you're performing for people. It's not a self-glorification thing.
