Pretenders Quotes
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I've done lots of songs for film soundtracks and things like that-stuff I'm not ashamed of, but that doesn't represent my legacy with the Pretenders...I think domesticity certainly doesn't make it easy to write, you know, because you've got a lot of distractions and I think a writer is always looking for distractions.
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I'm not interested in trying to have people who might like other kinds of music follow me. I don't want to please them.
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With Freebass, there were no rules, really. It was all rather chaotic. Obviously, Hooky was playing the high end stuff, which he always does; Mani was doing the bottom end, and I thought I'd go midway and meet everyone in the middle.
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I'm with someone who's got very high standards, and he doesn't tolerate all these ridiculous vices very easily. That's not reason enough to marry someone, although people have gotten married for less.
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Occasionally, a great band would come along, like Blondie or OutKast who could be pop and bring interesting ideas into the mainstream at the same time. That's now gone, because of this weird mutation of pop, rap, R&B, bad rave, and supposedly soulful singing on top of it.
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I never want to bore the public.
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I used to think I was ordinary and just like everybody else, and I am, but there is something about being in a band. It's not for everyone.
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Back in the days of the Smiths, when we first started touring England - this is, like, 1984 - there were these two girls. They were literally vicar's daughters, and they used to follow us to every gig, no matter where we went.
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When I hear myself singing, I hear Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix. There's a conversational thing going on. I suppose it depends on which The Pretenders song you're listening to.
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I am very proud of the fact that 20 years on people tell me they became a vegetarian as a result of 'Meat is Murder'. “I think that is quite literally rock music changing someone's life - it's certainly changing the life of animals. It is one of the things I am most proud of.
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One person can make all the difference in the world. For the first time in recorded human history, we have the fate of the whole planet in our hands.
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Joining Modest Mouse was just consistent with what I used to do as a teenager: I followed where I thought I would make some interesting music.
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All I can really remember doing was listening to the radio and listening to records when I was at school. I wasn't very academic, and I certainly wasn't a very good student.
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The only thing I've ever offered the public is some music. If they like the music, that's great. Turn on the radio. If they don't like it, switch it off.
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I remember, my mom, she's lived in Spain for about thirty years, and we were playing the Royal Albert Hall, and she was with some friends from New York. Morrissey came out with the sign 'The Queen is Dead,' and my mom's friends are like, 'Oh my God.' They took it literally.
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I'm not going to judge what I do.
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Everyone has their set of problems and I'm certainly not going to sensationalize mine or try to evoke pity or sympathy out of people because I don't think they warrant that sort of thing. That's my private karma that I have to work out.
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I'm kind of a brown-rice hippy. I don't think I'd have much success if I tried a dinner party, but I'm not going to have one, and I've never been invited to one, and that's just fine.
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The meat industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars lying to the public about their product. But no amount of false propaganda can sanitize meat. The facts are absolutely clear: Eating meat is bad for human health, catastrophic for the environment, and a living nightmare for animals.
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What characterized the whole punk scene for me in 1977 was there was no racism or sexism. It was an anarchy of -isms, and a matter of abolishing it all.
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The cliché of that sort of wasted, renegade, drugged-out musician of the '70s is kind of dead and gone now. And I suppose that a lot of people still keep relying on that, or some kind of image to perpetuate something that they think they're supposed to sound like. But that kind of takes you away from real inspiration and, you know, real artistic discovery of the individual.
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In my experience lust only ever leads to misery. All that suspicion and jealousy and anguish it unleashes. I don't want those things in my life.
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Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!
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Whatever I'm already doing becomes enhanced when I smoke pot. It can also be demotivating, because if I'm not doing anything and I smoke a joint, it enhances just sitting in a chair. Then I don't even want to get up to change a record. That might not be a bad thing, but you have to get things done once in a while.