Pretenders Quotes
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I preferred rock when it was in the dark, when it was a secret between me and the audience, when it wasn't mainstream.
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Now, I'm a dad, I'm an adult. I've been solo for 25 years; I've been in other people's groups but I'm solo [in a broader sense]. I stopped comparing myself to other people's maps when I was maybe 24, really. The trajectory that I've gone on is not one that I can compare with anybody else.
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Guitars have been the obsession of my life. I first picked one up at the age of four and Ive been a guitar junkie ever since.
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If you're purely derivative in what you do, then you could very easily get lost along the way. But for me, I might want to even do something else for a while.
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I don't really go out to clubs, but if I did, I'd just want to go rock out with my mates or whatever.
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Being on tour sends me crazy, I drink too much and out comes the John Mcenroe in me.
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I find this kind of folk with guys in Wellington boots and washboards not good to listen to. That music is one step away from barn dancing as far as I'm concerned. Anyone under the age of 60 should not be wearing Wellington boots on stage.
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There's the meat eaters and there's us. And that's the way I look at the world.
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Sometimes people confuse contrivance and authenticity, and sometimes I think authenticity can get in the way of a good excuse to do something theatrical. I just don't like wasting opportunity - if you're going to do a photo session, if you're going to walk on stage, why not make it interesting?
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Songwriting is like working on a jigsaw puzzle, and it doesn't make any sense until you find that last piece. It has to make sense or it doesn't work.
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I can show bands how to produce themselves. In the same way, many bands think you can't make it without some fat cat in London or New York to manage you. Thats just crap. All you need is someone a bit older than you with a bit of business nous whom you trust.
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Birkenstock desert boots have been a part of pop culture since the beatniks. I made such a fuzz about them being discontinued that the company send me an 'lifetime supply', which initially turned out to be seven pairs at two years apiece. They weren’t giving me very long. I think that’s why I gave up smoking.
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We're in a society where no one's putting a gun to your head and making you use your phone, but some people start to crack. "I Want the Heartbeat" is about the downside of it. People can and do break up friendships and relationships because of the internet, and that can't be good. You have to find a balance. You can't let it be the boss of you.
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Anything that's ever gotten on the charts as a result of "American Idol" or "The X Factor" in the UK. It's born out of karaoke culture. It's been a long time coming, but it's absolutely affected radio.
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I don't think that Michael Jackson died. He's probably dead now, but I don't think he died when they said he did. I think he wanted out of the game anyway, so he just disappeared.
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In the earlier part of the 90s, I was really hell-bent on discovering how new technology works and how to make records entirely without a producer, which isn't necessarily what fans wanted. But I had to do it because I felt it was in my destiny or whatever.
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I've run all the bands I've been in. A great front man needs that other person. It's not enough to have a guy with a cute face standing behind a microphone. I see it like the classic romantic relationships with men and women, where the woman lets the man think he's running it. It's a classic matriarchal trait, and that's always been part of my personality.
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I really like Howler and an American band on Sub Pop called Jaill. There will always be new bands that I like, it's always been that way. I still go out to shows. One thing I don't like now is this idea that all singing needs to be expressed at maximum volume with so much bullshit sentimentality - it's pervading regular pop music.
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I don't like to think that I'm on a treadmill of album, tour, promotion and all that.
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There are no real men.
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People say to me, 'Do you dye your hair?' and I say, 'Well, does f**king Siouxsie Sioux? Does Bowie?'. Of course I'm going to have a decent haircut. It's one of the first things I learnt to do - get a few songs together and get your hairstyle right.
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The actual process of travel I really like, because that time on planes and in airports makes me feel like I'm moving around like a ghost. There's a certain aspect of justifiable downtime. I really feel like being online is so pervasive now.
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Now chart music is a genre all of its own and it's slipped away from what I understand pop music as. It's pretty difficult to take; it clogs up the airwaves.
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When I started playing the bass, I became kind of fascinated by it and started investigating various styles of bass playing, and I was really struck with funk music, mainly American funk music - Stanley Clarke, Funkadelic and that kind of stuff. That comes out in a couple of songs like 'Barbarism Begins at Home.'
