Michael Owen Bruce Quotes

I began the process of recording myself seriously in the fall of 1999. If I could finish an album of my own music, I would. Five years later I am happy to say I have.

The release of 'Chinese Democracy' marks a historic moment in rock n' roll.

It's nice to finally have a CD out which reflects my songwriting, my singing and the band that I have.

We've been working on a new album, which is going to come out next spring, which is very different, a change of style for us - it's going to be almost like rock music.

I heard the Beatles and the Stones, and Mom bought me an electric guitar. I played lead for four years and then switched to bass. One day someone suggested that I should sing, so I sheepishly stepped up to the microphone and the rest is rock history.

I don't feel that all the great songs have been written. I do feel that where we are now, certainly with rock & roll music, is that so much of it is variations on themes. But I think that it's one's particular creativity and individuality that comes out within that variation on a particular theme that makes a song great.

We always try to get new songs. That's what AC/DC has always been about. You can listen to what we do, and you can go, 'Well, it's AC/DC, but it's a new song.' So that's what we've always tried to achieve. So we've always got that style.

'Europe '72' came out right around the time that I started going to see the Dead, and it had a huge impression on me.

Tightly embracing guitar effects and tape loops, Mission of Burma made sound an important commodity in rock 'n' roll, and its members carried that tradition into their first album after a 19-year hiatus, 2004's 'ONoffON.'

My first influences for playing were Johnny Ramone and Jimmy Page, the same as everybody else. Joe Perry. The guys in Alice Cooper's band, whatever their names were. Mick Ronson from David Bowie. You know who really influenced me to write songs? Iron Maiden.

I liked what any other kid did back in the day. You know, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, and everything else that was on the radio in Michigan. There was a lot of Steely Dan; just a lot of great music inspired me.

We have recorded songs on the same day that were released years later in other albums.

To me the most important thing is getting into a studio and making an album that is 12 or 14 amazing songs, getting up onstage, and making people happy by livening the rock.

I tried to stick with what I knew best, which is writing rock n' roll songs and melodies. I am as passionate as I was when I was 20.

The weirdest thing I've been fascinated with nowadays is the new contemporary country music, which to me sounds like very strange '70s pop, and sometimes like rock music. But some of the themes in there - maybe it's because I know how the songs were written, but it really does sound like it was written by two or three people, with the idea to appeal to the most general audience.

From the age of 14, 13, I guess I wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star. And that was it. I wanted to make a living playing rock 'n' roll, and it was a ridiculously impossible dream at that time. But it was kind of all I ever wanted to do. It's nice to do it.

The time came around where the label was like, "Well, if you want something to come out in early 2017, it's going to have to be done by, like, so-and-so." So I plucked some of the old songs and wrote some new ones. Everybody keeps asking me, "Is this your L.A. record?" I was doing songs in a bedroom in New York, I was doing it in a bedroom in L.A. The only difference is when I look out the window, there's palm trees instead of snow.

When I started out playing guitar and singing, I was about twelve, going on thirteen. The role models for me back then were the folk singers. They all had these high, really nice voices and ranges, like Judy Collins and Joan Baez, and then later, of course, Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt. I decided early on that I was going to learn how to write songs really, really well, because I didn't want to have to compete as a singer. I didn't feel that it was my strong point.

It would be so nice to write songs that end up being timeless.

If I write songs and I think they sound good, then that's it. That's what I do. I'm not a technical musician, which is fine for rock and roll.

I do write nice songs about the guys who are nice to me! Eventually, I'm sure one of them will write a response - that's a pretty scary concept, actually! But I make sure I only write bad songs about the ones who deserve it.

Blue jean baby, LA lady, seamstress for the band. Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man. Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand.

For music, I always just played music myself - and, I had rock bands and wrote songs and put bands together that were loud, but not especially good. That was sort of the place music had in my career.

I did some songs for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby. I had done a jazz album of Roxy songs, and they used bits of it in the film. It would be nice to score a movie one day.