Rickey Medlocke Quotes

I was told when I was little I couldn't have an opinion because you want everyone to buy your record and like you.

I actually am always a music first person.

And there are certain things, and they are evident, obviously, without being boring about it, but I mean obviously, the two evident and easy ones being Gandhi and Cry Freedom, there are things which I do care about very much and which I would like to stand up and be counted.

I'm not some cute guy who is trying to be successful off that. I really want the music to come first.

When I put my first song out, I didn't put out any pictures. I just wanted people to hear my music.

I applaud the professional athletes using their platform to voice their opinions.

You got to look the part. You have to look like all the successful rock bands look. This is what they do. That's never been us. You know, it's a hard game to play: at the end of the day, we are just a rock band and have so many different cultures of music that we have grown up on, because we are fans of all different kinds of music.

Videos destroyed the vitality of rock and roll. Before that, music said, "Listen to me." Now it says, "Look at me."

The world is full of bands and bullshit, and if I'm doing a stupid art project like rock 'n' roll then I want to spare my audience as much as possible.

I don't pay attention to sales because it's not about that for me. It's about the music. Music is all I have.

People will always have the desire to make rock and roll records, and they'll always have the desire to sell rock and roll records. Most of the people making these records do it because it is a business, and if someone says, "You can't do this", they won't complain. They'll just keep making records, but they'll get blander and blander. There'll still be rock and roll, but compared to what it really could be or ought to be, I don't think it'll be all that terrific.

...I'm not going to be able to make things that I can call Kanye West just by making T-shirts.

I mean, the thing about Guns N' Roses was that it wasn't trying to attach itself to the '80s, or anything that had to do with the '80s. It's just who we were at that time. We were doing what we wanted to do. That had really nothing to do with anything around us, except for the simple fact that we were rebelling against that stuff.

Popular culture, in all its crudeness, is the output of liberals. It is liberalism that for decades has rejected any protest as 'censorship' or 'McCarthyism.'

Trying to seduce an audience is the basis of rock & roll.

do i have political views? you bet! i think the best way to express them is in your work, and then get the hell off the stage

If you come across an American artist right now who has no political opinions or is afraid of talking politics, be very concerned.

What we've had to do is learn to control success, put it in perspective, and not lose the essence of what we're doing - the music.

I'm not a comedian. I'm not a show host. I'm a musician. That's why I've turned down offers to host the Grammy Awards and the American Music Awards. Is it really entertaining for me to get up there and crack a few weak jokes and force people to laugh because I'm Michael Jackson, when I know in my heart that I'm not funny?

The last thing you want to do is write songs about being in a band.

When alternative music - which is supposed to be the standard-bearer of where white rock is headed - becomes either too cute or too manufactured, that's just really not good.

When I was a kid, the people of my generation didn't want to be writers, they wanted to be rock stars. Rock and roll was not just entertainment, it was the center of people's lives. When I was young, it was exciting and interesting.

Anyone who tells you they got into rock'n'roll for reasons other than girls, fame and money is full of s***.

They wanted to 'radiofy' what I was doing. I was also in a position where I was compromised. I was much younger and maybe it is because I am Irish but there was a guilt factor when the record company pays you a lot of money, you feel obliged.

In my naïvety, I thought people who were in rock 'n' roll bands were great artists, and it was a huge shock to the system to realise that they weren't, that they didn't even aspire to be, really. Some of them did, maybe, but some of them, like Samson, were very frightened of the idea.