Neil Innes Quotes

I followed most of the 80's bands into the 90's as most of those folks who hadn't moved away were all still active. However, there was a point when I lost track of the new bands coming up.

The music I used to make was a lot more rock, so I come from this background of head banging a lot, and it took me a while to figure out how to do it in the context of our music.

It's a great honor when somebody takes your song and does something different with it. That's what music is all about: to constantly change what somebody else has done.

In a way, that's always been Yes' history to a large extent! Quite a few occasions when we've had a new band member or change in members, then we've done a new album with new chops and refreshed the musical approach.

I think that every band tries to mature their sound through their existence, you know?

Rock was always part of my heart and soul. But the times just changed and everybody wanted to dance.

I started playing with a group of young people when I was 13. I turned professional when I was 15 and I played dance halls, this on bass guitar.

None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back.

When rock came in, I wasn't bitter about it. I was puzzled.

When Peter Gabriel left, we obviously lost a very strong stage performer. Phil hasn't replaced him; Phil's done a different thing.

Yes's whole career was never really planned in any sort of way. It's always sad when a member leaves, but it's exciting when someone new comes in, and that regenerates the freshness of the band.

Of course, we didn't survive to play all the way through the '90s, so I can say that - as I said, everybody in the band was aware of this, and we trying to figure out ways to make it different.

By the time The Band did The Last Waltz, the chemistry had changed, and it wasn't a thrill anymore to live that studio kind of life.

I wasn't originally a bass player. I just found out I was needed, because everyone wants to play guitar.

Originally, we had a band known as Steely Dan. As we moved away from the band, we got whoever was appropriate for specific tunes. In a lot of cases, we gravitated toward jazz players who had more sophisticated harmonic concepts.

There are people who will always want the genre, whatever it is, to stay traditional, to stay what it was like when you were 15 years old, but I just don't think music does that. Music is always changing and evolving, just like us as people.

I started as a jazz musician, not a singer, then I became a rock 'n' roll artist with Aphrodite's Child.

Some of the music I made for 'Fantastic Damage' I thought I was making for the Company Flow album, but the majority of it was post-Company Flow.

I kind of question whether to say this or not, but it's almost like the Allman Brothers turned into an Allman Brothers tribute band.

I feel like Nashville has really embraced me with open arms. I was a little worried at first; you know, everybody knows about my immediate past, which is rock music. But everyone is coming to find out that I've been singing country music my whole life.

Today's folk song is rock and roll. Although it happened to emanate from America, that's not really important in the end because we wrote our own music and that changed everything.

When I first organized the King Cole Trio back in 1937, we were strictly what you would call an instrumental group. To break the monotony, I would sing a few songs here and there between the playing. I sang things I had known over the years. I wasn't trying to give it any special treatment, just singing. I noticed thereafter people started requesting more singing, and it was just one of those things.

We came out right in the middle of the hard-rock period... it was hard-rock everywhere! But we were ready to make our music, you know?And it was such a turn around, I guess it caught people by surprise.

Every good band in the world was a cover band first. The Beatles were and the Stones were. Everybody was a cover band.

If you want to put your rock 'n' roll into mythology, [A Period of Transition] is from the Daddy Cool school.