Bob Livingston Quotes

Andy Chase and I were keyboard players originally, and we became guitarists later. But it's fun for us to focus more on the keyboard stuff sometimes.

I didn't think of myself as a lead player, especially when we did live shows, because me and Keith used to switch around all the time. He'd take a lead, I'd play rhythm. Sometimes even within one song. It wasn't strict and regimented.

I played with the same band for years and years and there's a beauty to having one solid core that you keep exploring. On the other hand, it's nice to throw yourself in different situations where you find out things about your own resources.

I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer.

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.

Actually, it's great to play with someone who tries to come up with interesting drum beats because it pushes the music in different directions.

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

A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that's true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there's something about the guitar - the range of possibilities is much broader.

I don't want to limit myself musically. It would be really limiting if we'd neglect something we really want to do, like explore other styles of music.

Yes, I always say that we're a National League band. What I mean is, if you play an instrument, you have to sing. So I always call our drummer up. Even the drummer has to take a turn on the microphone.

You don't want to be a one-trick pony. On a lot of Smiths songs, I used a pick or a plectrum, and for some of the slow songs, I used my thumbs and my fingers. That's why I love the bass - it's adaptable, and you can express yourself so well with it.

I like writing different types of music. I don't like being stuck into one thing.

But it can be hard to experiment when you're in a band.

The shows are so different from each other, depending on whether I play with my band, Nine Stories, other musicians, an orchestra, only one or two members of my band.

I've discovered all kinds of music and done all kinds of music over the past 40 years, from playing tango with Piazzolla to all the different bands I've had.

Boredom or being sick of what you've done before is a big part of being in a band.

I've been called 'musically schizophrenic,' and some people think that's a cool thing.

I'm quite an eclectic musician.

I think that Yes' music is kind of on its own out there, and it goes through different chapters, and that involves different people. I don't think it's a case of 'any year is better than any other.' They can all co-exist quite comfortably.

In my last band, Soundgarden, I had a couple of different drummers sit in on some stuff and it was fun for me to kind of take a break and watch the band.

Of course, we didn't survive to play all the way through the '90s, so I can say that - as I said, everybody in the band was aware of this, and we trying to figure out ways to make it different.

A lot of people I make music with are really talented and it doesn't stop at one instrument.

The way Yes works is when we have a new member come in, as in Jon Davison, it's appropriate that we see what differences we can get out of a new contributing member in order to keep Yes interesting.

Any professional knows that the flute and the piano is a boring combination. All you've got to arrive at is a kind of typical gestural crap, right? You might agree, though you wouldn't call it gestural crap.

I really liked them, not just Syd, but all of them. Roger was very important, I thought, his contribution. And so was Rick's organ playing. It was a good band. It became something else completely, obviously.