Quoted

Summer 2008
“I met him at a dinner party in L.A., and I was shocked to meet somebody who had been in that band who was not completely drugged out. I found that really intriguing, and it made me think, ‘If he's done it, then maybe I've got a chance.’”
– Lost’s Naveen Andrews, on his quest for sobriety after meeting Sex Pistols’ guitarist Steve Jones

Spring 2008
“It’s very tempting to just make a loud raspberry sound, isn’t it? I think it’s very hard for anyone to tell what’s going to happen. Artists themselves never have any idea. That’s why we’re always nervous wrecks.”
– Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes, on the band’s naysayers 25 years later

Fall 2007
Q: In portraying Earl, did you worry about playing into trailer trash stereotypes?
A: That’s a really good question, and I’ll answer that in one minute. [Speaks to Wendy’s cashier] I will have a Number Two…a medium Sprite…and a medium Frosty.
– Jason Lee, discussing My Name Is Earl during an on-the-road interview

Spring 2007
“People are funny. They have mixed-up feelings about me and the character. They like to make a great show of fear or terror, but it’s sort of mixed up with a case of the giggles. They just don’t know what their reaction is. They discover that they have been delighted to be frightened by me all this time, and now suddenly they have to decide whether it’s the character or the actor that they’re confronted with.”
– Michael Emerson, aka Ben Linus from Lost

Fall 2006
“For me, we're a heavy band, but I feel like maybe I spent too much time last time trying to prove that. We've established that, it's all good, and I feel like ‘Good Enough’ is the bravest song, writing-wise, for the record. It's totally scary to be so vulnerable when I know however many metalheads are going to diss it because it's not the exact same thing, and it doesn't end with, ‘And then he died’ or ‘I pushed him off a cliff’ or ‘He’s a ghost really’. Whatever. I feel good enough.”
– Amy Lee, discussing the closing song on the new Evanescence album

March 2006
"Keep it real, man. Keep the video camera going all the time. Keep the home movies going because you'll want that stuff down the road. It may seem like a pain in the ass, but get your hands on a video camera or a digital camera and at least take a lot of pictures because you'll want them later on. The other thing is don't lose sight of why you get into this. It's really easy to get sideswiped and get overwhelmed by some of the extraneous bullshit and the hangers on. It's a cliché, but keepin' it real means stay true to your heart and that'll see you through. For whatever success you have, you're going to get kicked in the ass, and that's when you're really going to need that strength inside. So stay in touch with that because it's tough."
– Joe Perry, offering advice to younger rockers

Fall 2005
“Did you hear about 666 not being the number of the beast? It was on BBC or whatever. They found this really old relic, the oldest Bible so far, which dates 100 years older than the ones before. The number of the Devil in Revelations is 616. So all that 666 crap and thinking that we’re Satanic was bullshit.”
– H.I.M. frontman Ville Valo

Spring 2005
“The Director’s Cut came about because when this film originally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, it had a running time of exactly two hours. When you’re a first-time filmmaker and you’re twenty-five, you’re never in a million years going to get any financial entity to allow you to bring your film to a festival at any length longer than two hours because you don’t have domestic distribution. And to give a first-time filmmaker that luxury is unheard of, so I never expected to get that at all. At Sundance, they were expecting something more light-hearted, mainstream and easy-to-market. They were perplexed, baffled and bothered by what they saw; they meaning the acquisitions executives.”
-- Director Richard Kelly on the Director’s Cut of Donnie Darko

January 2005
"In Canada, we aren't sent into a paralytic terror if we see a nipple. There have been nipples shown on Canadian television for decades now, and there's not been one death attributable to it."
-- Dave Foley, co-star of Kids In The Hall and News Radio

September 2004
“I read your magazine from time to time, and was recently struck by Bryan Reesman's ‘All Hyped Up’ article. I've worked in the studio system for the past 10 years and have seen firsthand the dealings that go on. Sadly, over the past decade I've seen the movie itself - the actual telling of the story - get overshadowed by studio politics. Not since What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line by Art Linson have I read such an honest inside look.”
-- Anonymous, Razor Magazine's Letters From The Edge, September 2004

July 2004
“Studio heads, more than producers, often cast stars because it seems safer. The truth is there are very few commercial stars, so most of the talent ends up being overpaid. But once one star is paid, the rest are stupid if they don’t ask for the same.”
-- Bill Mechanic, CEO of Pandemonium Films and former Head of Fox Filmed Entertainment

May 2004
“I would much rather take $5 million and make 50 movies, and hope that one or two of them really stands out, than take $5 million and make four movies.”
-- Donald Whittier, director of the DV feature Fight Circle

April 2004
“The tunes hold up because they have this innocence about them which was there when I recorded them. I had a song, I had four chords, I had some lyrics, and I put them out to the world. The first record was basically innocence to tape.”
--Aldo Nova, on his self-titled debut album from 1982

March 2004
“I heard a girl say one time that she was tri-sexual – ‘I’ll try anything once.’”
--Jerry Gaskill, drummer for King’s X

February 2004
"In the U.S., an average kid between 8 and 12 is exposed to 41,500 television commercials per year now. That’s the highest ranking in the world. Number two is Australia with 37,000, and then the UK with 36,000 per year."
--Martin Lindstrom, international branding expert

December 2003
"It looks a bit like the old Werewolf. It looks better than me."
-AC/DC’s Angus Young on his action figure from McFarlane Toys

October 2003
"It's very important that people feel respected, because I don't get off on anything else. That's what I get off on. I believe in the Round Table, I do. I don't believe in King Arthur. In the end, I think that he really changed everything to Christianity, made that choice to Catholicism over maybe even a different form of Christianity. So I believe in the Round Table - not the way it's been commercialized and the tale has been told - but I do believe in a concept of a round table."
- Tori Amos, on the collaborative process of making music

September 2003
"I wasn't expected to live. So that's a good place to start.
If they don't expect you to live anyway, and you do, then all bets are off."
– Christopher Reeve on gradually recovering from his paralysis after an equestrian accident in 1995

July 2003
"What is magic but a process of belief about events that all happen at the same time? Like all lines meeting at the same time. It’s an ignition, a spark. To be a magician, you have to attain it. Being in the right place at the right time and changing your environment and changing people’s perception of things by utilizing that particular moment is magic. Sometimes you have to do that in a band."
--Dani Filth, frontman for Cradle Of Filth

April/May 2003
"I don't really think being on the cover of Maxim will help me to sell records. Frankly, I don't need to be in my underwear to command attention from men. I can do it just as well by playing my piano."
--Vanessa Carlton

March 2003
"The music business has become so targeted, so compartmentalized, and so commercialized, with all these people from Moby to Britney Spears doing massive endorsements. People eventually might want something that's a little less like a Nine Lives Purina commercial and discover this kind of stuff again. We're just going to plug away and do our thing. The music is what matters."
--David DeFeis, frontman for Romantic metal band Virgin Steele

December 2002
"Most of the albums that I hold dearest of all are albums I probably didn't like the first time I heard [them] because there's a lot of stuff going on in there that you cannot appreciate the first time." - Steven Wilson, mastermind and frontman of Porcupine Tree

October/November 2002
"One of the funniest things was [when] we were playing in a little town in Cornwall, which is in the southwest of England, and it was one of those nights where people were being outrageous and there were no security guards anywhere. We were playing a reggae tune, and there was this guy holding his dog up against the microphone, barking through the mike. Another time, I remember playing and thinking my guitar sounded a bit odd. I turned around, and there was a guy wearing a policeman's uniform riding a bicycle up and down on my pedals. This is how it mad gets in England sometimes." - Ed Wynne, guitarist and founder of psychedelic rockers Ozric Tentacles

September 2002
“It’s quite interesting that [of] the biggest singers of the Twentieth Century, none of them were writers.  Like Bing Crosby, Sinatra, and Elvis.  They all just did songs by other people.  Even Billie Holiday, my favorite singer of all time, only did one or two [original] songs, if that.” – Bryan Ferry (Pictures)

July 2002
"What's weird is when I wear that jacket next to Glenn [Tipton], he's tan by the end of the song, and the plants around me have grown to enormous proportions." Judas Priest singer Ripper Owens on wearing his highly reflective metal jacket

June 2002
"One of my biggest [audience] impressions was the first time we played Japan, because it's totally different than in Europe. They scream in different situations, and they react in different places. We were so confused the first time! 'Hey, what's going here! Did we do something wrong?' In Europe, there's chaos in the concert. In Japan, at the same time, everybody was screaming 'Yeah!' Then in the next spot, silence. Nobody was doing anything. They would scream together." - André Olbrich, lead guitarist for Blind Guardian

May 2002
"Man. I've been making fun of mullets for years, and I didn't realize that there was one small period of time where I possibly had the worst mullet I've ever seen. It was just horrible." - Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, on watching himself on "Behind The Music"

March 2002
"When George Harrison died, he was 58. I'm almost 50, and my Mom died when she was 63. I'm thinking: 'What if that's part of my story, where i would pass on when I'm 60?' I'd like to really get the most out of life I can right now, so I'm going to do as many different things [as i can]. I'm going to put out different records. I don't want to waste time doing something that I'm not happy with, because there might not be that much time." - Composer/multi-instrumentalist David Arkenstone

January 2002
"I loved it. It was really funny. When people make fun of you like that, it's a great compliment really." - Composer Philip Glass remarking on his "appearance" on South Park

December 2001
"I"m a technical wizard on guitar. I studied with the masters. I mean, not with them, but I learned licks off their records. Yngwie Malmsteen. C.C. DeVille is one of my favorites. I get it from the roots of rock 'n' roll, you know. The guy that played with Winger - I forget his name - he's really good." - Rikki Ratchet, guitarist for Danger Kitty

October 2001
"I'm a big Fleetwood Mac fan." - Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison (aka #1)

September 2001
"We had backstage passes and tickets to Pink Floyd [when] they played eleven nights at Earl's Court, this huge place in London. Afterwards I went backstage with some people from the record company, and there's David Gilmour sitting in a chair. I'm a huge Pink Floyd fan, and I'm sitting there agonizing over what to say to him, because I know when people come up to meet me, a lot of people say really stupid things and they get embarrassed and they don't know what to say. It's the same for anybody. You meed somebody who you really admire, and waht are you going to say to them? So you know what I did? I went over and I introduced myself and said 'I'm a really big fan, thanks for making the music.' And he was polite and a gentleman, and he said 'Thanks for listening.'" - Geoff Tate, Queensryche

August 2001
"Sometimes I feel like I've been doing it for a thousand years, and some mornings I feel bright and fresh. I'm at a point in my life now where I'm just so content in just rumbling along in a kind of unstoppable, progressive way. I'm really enjoying it. I feel like I'm turning into a long-distance heavy metal truck driver. [laughs] I'm in a cab and I'm pulling along all this metal that I've accumulated over the past 30 years, and I'm just going from place-to-place and having fun with it. It's remarkable if you really look at the Big Picture and sit down and think about what's gone on." - Rob Halford

July 2001
"We're good players, man, don't make no mistakes about that. It's harder to play the stuff we play than these so-called "musical bands". Given about a month's practice, I could play what (Jaco) Pastorius played, but he could never play what I play. He doesn't have the minimalism for a start. He'd be too busy." - Lemmy from Motorhead

June 2001
"I'm moved by any good, soothing music which has soul in it. A good musician can be of any genre, but that good musicianship shows out not only in virtuosity but in being able to touch the mind and the heart." - Ravi Shankar

April 2001
"I always love it when the older fans write and say - and they don't mean it as an insult - 'I used to be a big fan of yours.' What? You hate my guts now? What?" - Donny Osmond

March 2001
"Life's not like baseball. You get more than 3 swings. I don't consider myself any different than these old cats that play blues. It's all in your head. We still rock when we get out there." - Brian Vollmer, singer for Helix, on the band's 27-year career

February 2001
"The fan is completely underrated. People that appreciate painting, as far as I'm concerned, are just artists. They're painters, they're just as important. Somebody that can find something wonderful in a painting [has] a talent that is as hard to achieve as the actual execution of the work. When I find somebody that likes looking at a painting, or loves listening to music, and is just as passionate about it, I look at them as a peer." - Eric Hammer of Mors Syphilitica

January 2001
"In a big family, love and hate are so close together sometimes. The guy you love yesterday could be your biggest enemy tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow you're drinking a beer together again. [We're] like a big family. We kick our asses and drink our beers together, put it that way." - Andi Deris, singer for Helloween

December 2000
"Love is like a phone booth. I take my love where I find it, if you know what I mean." - Derek Smalls, Spinal Tap