Ad-Rock Quotes

My manager, my band members, we're all good friends. You need that because a lot of times an artist will be so sheltered he will lose touch with what the fans want.

If you are in a band like my brother, Rudolf, who is in the Scorpions, then you have a kind of umbrella and you cover each other. You have five people to discuss things with and you are all in the same boat, and therefore make much wiser choices.

We started this band as kids, and as time has gone on, we've grown and are learning to accommodate each others' differences.

I think I used to do everything and then people had a problem with that within the band, so we're doing more of a communal thing.

I think getting the rest of the guys in the band to write is important.

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

I discovered that it was a lonely world being a solo artist. Then I started working with another solo artist, Rod Stewart, and he used to tell me how lonely he was!

I'm not really a control person, and I'm a big believer in collaboration. I like to have a friend.

It's easy to put on a Deep Purple record and say, 'That sounds great.' But why? Part of it is individual practice, but by playing together, a talent of meshing happens.

I have a lot to do with the writing, and also the production, but it would be wrong of me to say that I'm the most important member of the band, because everybody is important the way I see it.

You learn a lot about each other from a tour, musically and humanly.

I cannot exist as a solo artist.

For the most part, I really love being in a collaborative thing. And in a collaborative thing if you have a singer as good as Sean Smith or Eddie Vedder, you kind of think, well, why don't you just go ahead and let them sing? People seem to really like it.

For years I've wanted to find some guys that I could work with, because I realized a long time ago that I can do a lot of things other than Aerosmith.

Joe's been my drummer for 14 years, and we've been buddies for six years.

You make one solo album, and some people swear you're about to leave the band or there are creative differences.

I had a solo career before Van Halen. My fan base filtered through Van Halen with me and came right on out the other side with me.

… leadership is not a one man show.

Luckily, I'm in a band with two other guys who really pull their own weight and have the skills and abilities to compensate for my weaknesses.

I've got lots of friends who are musicians, so if they ask me to do things, I'll go and do it for a laugh. I don't want to be a pop star or anything like that.

The sense of acting being teamwork was a mentality that I took from school: I studied with wonderful people, and I wanted them to be proud of me.

The real producers back in the day didn't sit there and play every single instrument. They made sure the record had the best performance out of everyone involved possible.

When it comes to being in a band or going solo, one is collaborative, and one is not. But generally speaking, when going solo, I am the boss. People can contribute ideas, but I am the boss. When collaborating, you make compromises and look for a common ground.

A lot of people are trying to get me to go solo. It's just a thing I have to deal with a lot. Record labels are always trying to get me to go solo.

I gravitated towards Jim Ward, because I knew he was totally into the work aspect of being in a band.