One of the greatest perks about writing my Q&A column each week is picking the brain of musicians on a wide variety of topics. Here are some of my favourite quotes from some of those music makers with whom I had the pleasure of speaking with in 2013:
The Bottle Rockets
“You could say that CCR are an alt-country band. In some ways, so are The Eagles. It just happened to be in the early 90’s, at a time when we were one of the happening bands, that they finally found a name for this style of music.” – Brian Henneman of The Bottle Rockets on why he feels his band is necessarily deserving of the title of alt.country pioneers.
“It would have been hard to follow up the 60’s and 70’s, which were basically the golden age of music.” – Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) on why she feels music from the 80’s tends to get a bad rap.
“I can tell you there will never be another Ministry studio record. Never again. This is going to be an iron clad contract with the public. You will see bootlegs, some live albums and remix albums but that is going to be it.” – Ministry founding member Al Jourgensen.
Ben Shepherd
“During the making of the record, someone suggested to me that I should get a band together to play these songs. I told them I’d never be in another band again, that it was too much of a hassle; Soundgarden reunited two days later.” – Soundgarden bassist Ben Shepherd speaking of his solo debut In Deep Owl.
“I don’t think Alex was sabotaging himself as much as he was simply cutting his own path, doing what he wanted to do. Alex was an amazing, free spirit; that is how he lived his life. His music followed that same path.” – Big Star drummer Jody Stephens on his late Big Star band mate Alex Chilton.
“If you have got that pressure inside of you, it is going to explode like a volcano at some point. You just never know when that is going to happen. For me, that opportunity came at age 63.” – Charles Bradley on being a late bloomer in the music business.
Monster Magnet
“I think that everyone feels there is a lot of hard working people out there doing art, music and writing that put it into the giant display of the internet and watch their work get sucked up in 3.5 seconds.” – Dave Wyndorf (Monster Magnet) on the challenges of trying to make a lasting impression in the age of the internet.