Lee Ranaldo Quotes

When you're in a band and there's five of you, you have to accommodate five people in every song.

My drummer, bass player, and guitar player sing backgrounds. They play and sing. I can sing all the harmonies, but I can't do it alone.

That's what Joe Don Rooney and I do. He plays guitar and I play bass - and there's no reason to call it a band if you're not gonna have the guys in the band playing on the records.

That's the nice thing about being in Mr. Big, is I'm not only the guitar player. I'm the background singer, and so I get to do both of those things. Sometimes we even switch instruments and I get to be the drummer.

Girls Aloud had a style of music, so you come together and work as a group.

There's no such thing as a lead singer in our band.

Coldplay are just four friends trying to make great music.

A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.

Sometimes I like to make music together with a singer or with singers.

Music shouldn't be based around money or politics. Music should be a bunch of people that really do great songs together doing them together for the pursuit of having a good time.

Only one of us would usually sing lead. Which most of the time was, Mickey or Dave. They thought it was perfectly a natural routine, because Mickey and Dave saw themselves as TV actors.

The reality is, like any band, you can never quite quantify who does what.

If it had remained always my band, my natural tendency would have been to get more complex and arrange things more and more. That wouldn't necessarily be good for Eddie, or anyone else in the band.

I am laughably aggressive, and the rest of the band is very laid back, so we mix well.

I felt I never needed to fight for a more prominent songwriting and increased vocal role with the Cars.

Joining a band without ever having really met the people before, you just want to be musically powerful.

I'm always forming bands.

I've become more interested in creating a band sound than trying to outshine the other guys.

I don't think the Beatles were that good. I think they're fine, you know. Ringo's got the best backbeat I've ever heard... Paul is a fine bass player... but he's a bit overpowering at times.

In New Order, I played about 95% of the synths. It's not much fun for the other guys in the band when I'm playing my synth parts.

In the case of Roadcase Royale, everyone in the band has a lot to offer as a writer and producer.

Joe Walsh is somebody who... he's a writer, obviously, and he's a singer-songwriter, whatever, but at the end of the day, when it comes to the Eagles, he's there to play guitar, and he's there to supply whatever is needed for that band, and that is what I feel with Metallica.

When I did my solo album, I put on a song that I'd planned for Toto that never made an album constructed from a great drum track with Jeff and a bass track with Mike and the guys loved it.

I'll sing backgrounds, but a lead singer, you know, you've got to have that mentality and personality. I'd rather be the bass guy.

What's interesting about Vampire Weekend, everyone in the band, except for me, had a band in high school in which they were the lead singers. And I'm the one who never had that experience.