Pete Townshend Quotes

I was always very aware of drummers. My oldest brother Henry was a drummer, and he drummed on everything in the house from the kitchen sink to stovepipes. He was the first drummer in the Gil Evans Orchestra, so you've got to know how great he was.

I had a very thorough grounding in music; I'd grown up around songs. My parents listened to a lot of music. My dad was majorly into jazz, which was absolutely a big influence on me, even if it was more subconsciously as a kid.

I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.

I was raised around music.

I mean, I grew up in a very musical family.

I didn't grow up with classical music. My father was a folk music singer.

I always have been very musically influenced because of my dad. He had a very big record collection, so I dabbled in different genres.

My dad was a drummer for The Mamas & The Papas, and his mother was in the jazz world, so music has always been very much in my blood.

My father was a part of that generation, and my mother, too - the late-'30s, early-'40s big-band generation. Frank Sinatra, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday - all that stuff was in my background.

I come from a home that had a lot of music played in general.

My dad played music so I was around it at a really young age.

The music that I chose during my life, it wasn't arbitrary. It was all in my family home when I was growing up. I never tried to record anything I hadn't heard before the age of 10. Otherwise, I couldn't do it authentically.

We had a really vast music collection and I was raised around rock'n'roll, it's just the way it was.

I always loved the guitar, from when I was quite little. My dad had a G banjo at the house that he played. When he had parties, my sisters always played piano, and my dad played banjo.

My folks have played everything from rock, disco, pop, funk, and blues. My dad has always brought and played different genres like jazz, classical, and Latin. With all this in my pocket, I feel I have a taste of everything for my influences.

My father was always playing this ethnic blues stuff around the house, and both my parents played. Then one day my father brought home Big Bill Broonzy, and there he was sitting in our living room playing, and blues was in my heart from the time I was 12 years old.

So I was always around music and my dad was in his own way a progressive jazzer, a big band jazzer guy.

You must remember I grew up around music. Three of my family were musicians.

Our parents were musicians.

I come from a place where there's a lot of musical families.

I've always adored my father's music, but ever since I'd started singing, whether it was while I was still a student at the University of Massachusetts or professionally, I avoided Dad's material.

Music was a big part of my upbringing. My mum and my grandma are very passionate about music.

At a young age, I was introduced to Joni Mitchell by my mum. My dad was into progressive rock.

My whole family's been involved with music, and it's been so since the minstrel days.

Growing up, I didn't come from a musical family. Neither of my parents played an instrument, sang out loud, or listened to the radio with frequency. The record collection in the living room was only about 2 feet long - and that included 4 solid inches of Neil Diamond and Herb Alpert.