Lee Ranaldo Quotes

We've worked very hard as a band and would like to think we've got this far on the strength of our music.

You've seen one of the our gigs you've seen 'em all. But if you're into the music, you'll know that we played better the night before or we can play better.

Usually, a band 20 years into its existence doesn't put out its best records.

Music is my sport, and I'm the number-one athlete.

The Royal Opera House? I once had the immense privilege of appearing there and was awed by the air of refinement of those seemingly ethereal beings who floated about in the highest echelons of musical accomplishment, effortlessly producing virtuoso performances in several different languages.

In 2014, I composed the music for 'Jai Ho' which premiered in Dubai and I was a 23-year-old kid back then.

Basically, I want to prove to everybody that I can write music - good music.

I'm just really interested, when a band plays and they think they sucked from a band perspective.

Average band with a great drummer sounds great, great band with an average drummer sounds average.

There's nothing worse than a good video and good song, and you see a band and hate them because they can't perform. That's wack.

My musical genius reached its apex thirty years ago when I played the triangle in Haydn's children's symphony, so I could not play unless you needed someone to make one sustained note!

I asked the head musician if I could go onstage during the next break and he said sure. I got two laughs in twenty minutes, and walked out feeling more elated than I had ever felt in my entire life. The glory of that triumph contented me for two full years.

The ensemble playing is as clean as a whistle. The band plays in tune and with dynamics. Also, there is some fine arranging and orchestrating going on here, and the soloists perform at top level.

It's the singer not the song that makes the music move along.

If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!

As an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written. And then, of course, you can't do it without the musicians who can play it.

I don't go about playing music differently. It changes my sleeping schedule and my drinking habits, that's what I like to say.

To get up on stage with a band is fantastic. To play songs to an audience is mindblowing.

We all want to play great music all the time, but if that is not possible, you have to hit as many right notes as you can.

I like playing with a live band and I've got my act and we're fine.

I know that some of the great painters and some of the great artists didn't even start to 'peak', as you say, till they were in their fifties and sixties. And God knows, history is full of artistic people that weren't even recognized till they were dead and gone.

Dave Guy, the trumpet player, is an incredible musician. He came into the studio one day, and they had just cut a cover of "Sign, Seal, Deliver" for something with Sharon Jones, and I just was blown away by how they got that sonic. I mean, it was just so much the real deal.

Around the time the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, I was already in a band.

Congratulations to each and every one of you for the concert last night in New York and vice versa.

You can't compete with Sweets' sound and time feel. It's impossible.