Henry Rollins Quotes

I know that the gift that God gave me isn't gonna just wither up and die unless I let it die, so it's a matter of me having the faith that it's gonna come out. Whether or not the public's gonna like it is another story. But I think as long as I keep changing and sticking to what I really love - and the same goes for Steven and the other guys in the band - then people are gonna like it.

The pop world has really opened its doors.

Great music is great music, period.

I associate creativity with independent music.

I listen to all kinds of music. I love underground, new music that's popping.

I'm a big fan of certain new acts. I love any genre of music, and I think it's really great to see that there are new artists coming through. It's kinda funny to think that I'm like the old man on campus now. But I'm really happy for groups like One Direction. I think they're really good guys.

I think that there's always great music being made. Always has been, always will be.

Nowadays, people have an open mind vis-a-vis new artists like Meghan Trainor, Nico & Vinz, Hozier - there are hits coming out of everywhere.

I've never stopped making new music, and whether the audience wants to hear it or not, I'm going to play it. Because I'm an artist, and I create, and I've got new stuff.

A lot of Arabic composers such as Mohammed Abdel Wahab mixed sounds and instruments from all over the world. It's important to be able to propose new ways and new sounds without being stigmatised, censored or put aside.

The world will see many fashions of art and most of the world will follow the fashions and make none. These cults - these 'movements' - are absolutely necessary, or at any rate their causes are, for somewhere in their centres are the ones who bear the Idea, the ones who have questioned, 'But what do I think?' and 'How shall I say it best?

We think it hugely important to support young artists, there is a war against that kind of artistry, that kind of creation...When somebody is 19 years old, they're gonna do what they're gonna do just like we did... For me the most important thing was for him to know anytime he can call and I'll come whatever happens.

I think most musicians know if they make the same record twice, even if they say they don't.

I'm always looking, people are always presenting and I have found that every year of my life there's been great bands. All over the world, all the time. So when someone goes, "Music sucks now!" I'll go, "I don't think so. Not over at my house."

You can really bring so much more to rock'n'roll. Rock'n'roll is the most accepting, is the most fertile ground for creating hybrid forms of music and hybrid forms of show, if you draw from many, many different wells. It's just unfortunate so many rock'n'roll stars only bother to learn how to play like Led Zeppelin and/or the Rolling Stones and that's what you get, disc after disc and show after show.

I think '60s are appealing to creative people, because it seemed to be a time of endless possibilities, when the boundaries of what could be considered popular culture were being expanded almost by the week. It doesn't feel like that anymore. At times, I wish it were so. Radio is a perfect example; good God, I mean, back then the most interesting songs were also hits, and that's just not true anymore. It hasn't been true in a long time.

I think the people who are saying jazz has to sound a particular way, or "what you're doing isn't jazz," are just scared because they can't do it. A lot of them just aren't talented enough to do anything new, honestly. It's the people who are talented enough and who have the open mind and who are forward-thinkers are the ones who are doing something new. You tend to hate on what you can't produce.

I call it "being interrupted by success." We had done The Soft Bulletin, which came out in 1999, and we knew we that were gonna make another record before too long. But in between this, we were still in this mode of kind of just - not re-creating what we could be, but kind of doing different things. For the longest time in the Flaming Lips we were like, "Make a record, go on tour. Come back, make another record," and you know, I think, frankly, we were kind of like, "There's more to life than just recording records and going on tour."

I think that I am a pornographer, meaning that I make movies based on what excites me and what I would like to see.

I definitely think that with music my favorite thing about Nashville is that it's a music hub that accepts and allows all genres to be present, and I think there's been a kind of fusing of genres lately that for me makes me really happy and excited.

I think there needs to be people that are doing something different in music. There's a need for that as much as there's a need for a scene.

Man has the right . . . to play as he will . . . to think what he will: to speak what he will: to write what he will: to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will: to dress as he will.

I think most people start rock bands in their early twenties or teens, but I was almost thirty at the time when the band started really doing anything and it took another several years before people started caring about us.

I've been doing stand-up for so long, I think 19 years, that I love topics I can also expand on. Once I identify a topic like, say, seafood, which is a big one right now, it's like there are different kinds of tangents I can go on to build a larger chunk.

I think things are gonna change. I'm gonna take the age limit off of hip hop.