Musician Quotes

I wasn't writing the music. Ed would write a piece of music. I'd listen to it and come up with a melody and then we would arrange it. We'd put it together and I would write lyrics to my melodies.

I looked at Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and the boys up there thinking, I want to be that.

I had a solo career before Van Halen. My fan base filtered through Van Halen with me and came right on out the other side with me.

I don't want to talk about negative, dark things. The only thing I've got against stuff like Marilyn Manson is, they make unbelievable videos and unbelievable images.

I didn't think I'd be around 30 years later.

Everything that Eddie has said about me is the total opposite of what really happened. Eddie says I wanted to be a solo artist. No, Eddie wanted to be a solo artist.

Sometimes you're afraid to fall in love with a chick, but she sucks you in anyway.

If you don't ever stop singing, your voice stays in shape. It's like the marathon runner. You've got to run, run, run to stay in shape.

I see couples fighting about the stupidest things. You just have to rise above everything.

I had written lyrics to a song called The Silent Extreme, which Alex later renamed Humans Being.

Dave was great in Van Halen. No question about it. He was one of the best at being Mr. Rock Star. But it's sickening to see a guy still trying to be that with a wig on 20 years later.

All he cares about is going out there with his Jack Daniels bottle. Nothing has changed. That's kind of sad. If David was doing better than he used to be, then that would be different. But it was a joke and he made it that way.

In Van Halen there were moments, like in some of the ballads, I put my heart and soul into those records. Those lyrics when I sang 'em, I gave myself goosebumps.

I think all the bad blood started when Geffen released a greatest hits package of my solo stuff.

I've been drinking tequila for a long time now, and it's never been about drinking to get drunk. I don't do that. I never drink tequila during the day, and I don't drive at night.

Overall, we had about 50 meetings where the brothers would say that I couldn't do any solo records, I couldn't write for other people, I couldn't do this and I couldn't do that. These guys were trying to nail my feet to the ground.

Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new.

When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.

We're here to bring beauty to the world and make a difference in this planet. That's what art forms are about.

There's like a special group of people that come from different parts of the planet to study with me. It's nice. I just gave a workshop in Boston at the New England Conservatory, which was really nice.

Some tracks are with quartet and some tracks are with synthesizer.

James Cotton is a real blues guy, and he played with Muddy Waters, and it surprised me that they would want me to make a record with them, that he called me to do this record. I'd never done anything like that before. But I love blues, so I was very happy.

It used to be that creative music was most of the music that you heard back in the '30s and '40s, and now it's like 3 percent. So, its kind of a struggle getttin' it out there.

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect.

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.

I just try to play music from my heart and bring as much beauty as I can to as many people as I can. Just give them other alternatives, especially people who aren't exposed to creative music.

I just sit down at the piano and rattle it off.

I just see myself as a human being that's concerned about life.

I have music inside me and I'm very lucky to be able to play music and that's the way that I try to do it.

I always told the people at Cal Arts that if they wanted me to do Jazz studies, first of all, there couldn't be a big band within 500 miles and that I could do what I wanted to do. And they said I could.