Rick Derringer Quotes

People always want to talk about who I was, but I've always been singing, always been experimenting with pop music.

I picked Dad's guitar up when I was 8. It hurt to play, so I put it down and picked it back up when I was 15 and dug in. The guitar helped me come out of my shell and kind of gave me an identity at school.

My music is an extension of who I am and what I went through and what I know musically.

Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.

I've been making music for a long time, since I was very young, but at the same time, I'm still exploring what works for me. I feel like I'm just starting out.

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

After touring with David Bowie last year, I was inspired to look at what I wanted to do as an artist, and I realized I wanted to go back to the music I fell in love with when I was eight years old.

Touring helped me understand where I needed to be better in my music.

The way that I've always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love.

So the thing is to put out music for music's sake.

I'm interested in music as an extension of character.

If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process.

Joining Modest Mouse was just consistent with what I used to do as a teenager: I followed where I thought I would make some interesting music.

We became the songs we wrote.

I prefer to think of myself as a musician who is still learning and trying to do something every time out.

I'm going to keep on finding out the kind of man I am through my music. That's the one place I can be free. But the reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.

At the end of the day, I think that I'm making music for me as that 12-year-old kid in front of my boombox every day. I try to think about, if I'm that little kid, what would he like?

I want to grow as an artist, and I'm taking a step out. I want my music to mature.

I've been working on my own music. I've been writing an album, stuff that's kind of personal to my own life.

Music is still my main thing, but I will explore anything that's interesting and challenging.

Joanne' is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

Every day, the approach to life changes. And that's what music is all about to me.

When the band first started, it was so much about carving out some space for myself and our audience and our songs.