Bruce Johnston Quotes

My 'Slide Some Oil' ain't gon' be Nipsey Russell's 'Slide Some Oil.' Elijah Kelley's 'You Can't Win' ain't gon' be Michael Jackson's 'You Can't Win.'

We don't go around the world counting ticket and record sales, nor do we glue our ears to the radio to hear what's trendy at the moment - we're not that type of band.

It's either you finna create your own wave, you finna sound like me or you finna sound like G Herbo, you finna sound like Chance The Rapper, you finna sound like Juice Wrld. You ain't gonna get too far 'cause you sound like somebody. So, create your own lane and do your own style.

As I've gotten older, I've realized the element that sounds like The Gaslight Anthem that's mine is always going to be me. The other three-fourths of it is going to be the other guys. I can't stop doing what I do naturally, whether I'm in The Gaslight Anthem or my own thing.

The last thing I want to do is just be another voice on country music radio.

Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.

People hang their hopes on you fitting into their CD collection in way that they have made a space for, but I'm playing a longer game than that.

For me as a solo artist, I never want to be a nostalgia act.

It's much easier to be successful than it is to be relevant. The tricks won't keep you relevant. Tricks might keep you popular for a while, but in all honesty, I don't know how U2 will stay relevant. I know we've got a future. I know we can fill stadiums. And yet with every record, I think, 'Is this it? Are we still relevant?'

I think a lot of singer-songwriters get compared to each other, but I'd like to think that what I'm doing is special and specific to me.

I've never been on the cover of 'Tiger Beat' magazine, let's put it that way. But that's not why you go see Primus. You don't go see Primus to see what kind of new clothing I'm wearing or what my new hairdo is.

Bob Marley is one of the most recognized artists. He didn't care to be defined. People wondered, 'Is it reggae? Is it rock?' But at the end of the day they were still playing his music and that's what matters.

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.

I never try and sound like Sabbath.

I'm just going to do me; I'm not trying to do the Eminem thing, the D12 thing or the 50 thing.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn't copy my style from anybody.

I feel like I was the only person who was capable of making this type of music in this type of way. I don't rap like nobody, I don't try to sound like nobody.

I don't care where the Cure is placed in the pantheon of rock. I don't care if we're perceived as relevant. We're never worried how we fit in. I don't even want to fit in.

I love the pioneers like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, but when I write music, it comes out in my own way.

We don't need another Woody. Even Bob Dylan knew he couldn't be Woody Guthrie... I like Woody Guthrie fine, but I don't need the 50th generation version of it.

After Chuck Berry died, it seemed web sites popped up like mushrooms to show where he'd taken the guitar introduction to 'Johnny B. Goode' from to prove that his music was nothing new, that it was only ignorance, or vanity, that led his listeners to think that not only was the music different - they might be, too.

I didn't want to be one of the Beach Boys or one of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band. I mean, we appreciated that music. But I didn't want to grow a beard to look like Roy Wood just because I liked him.

It's just I do things differently and I want people to appreciate music for what it is, and not because of a story.

We just try to write about things that are close to our hearts. We don't sit around trying to write another 'Free Bird' or 'Sweet Home Alabama.'

With the first album, we felt people didn't really understand our band.