Jerry Dammers Quotes

Everything I listen to is influential in some way.

I take a lot from everywhere. I take from music, architecture, novels, and plays. Anywhere that hits you.

We want to be just like the greatest band. But I think we're just sort of both naturally humorous fellas.

Detroit is in my music consciously and subconsciously.

As a kid, I was obsessed with the Who. They were the most important band to me. Songs like "I'm One" helped me get through high school.

I think I would always tell school kids that, you know, they'd say, "When did you get interested in politics?" I said, "Just very young." Maybe it was because President [J.F.] Kennedy was the first Irish-Catholic president."

I get letters from kids from all over the country. I always try to answer them because there were people I looked up to in my youth and just wanted to be in contact with. It's also important to realize that you find your role models in a lot of different places. I've never believed that your role models have to look like you. You can find them in all sort of colors, shapes and sizes.

A lot of people like to think that polio was a inspiration in what I do. I think that music has to do with what kind of passion do you have.

I think fiction comes from everything you've ever done, and said, and dreamed, and imagined. It comes from everything you've read and haven't read... I think my work comes out of the culture of the world around me. I think that's where my language comes from.

I think humor is actually a very serious thing. I think the people who shaped culture, for the better, in the last 50 years or so, more than almost anyone else are people like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and even Chris Rock, back when he was doing the edgier stuff.

I knew the Beatles songs and how influential they are to other bands, but I'm not a fanatic, so I could look outside the box and observe.

Our country, customs, laws, our ambitions, and our notions of fit and fair-all these we never made; we found them ready-made; we but quote from them. What would remain to me if this art of appropriation were derogatory to genius? Every one of my writings has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a thousand things; wise and foolish have brought me, without suspecting it, the offering of their thoughts, faculties, and experience. My work is an aggregation of beings taken from the whole of nature. It bears the name of Goethe.

I think it was W.H. Auden who said he was lucky that his first favorite poet was Thomas Hardy, who was a good but not a great poet, because if you are exposed to the greats too soon it can just squash you as a writer.

Basically I made her [ Sara Pocock] listen to funk music for a good month, a nonstop stream of George Clinton. I was talking about the art from...if you look at the art from George Clinton albums there are two or three artists he worked with...I made her listen to my album too so all the images are from jokes I made. I wanted it to look like the thoughts that are coming out of my brain which is what comedy is anyway.

I don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.

All of my stories, they don't come from my high school experience, but they're definitely based on things that happened to me in high school, or things that happened to friends of mine, or things that I wish had happened to me.

Music & Fashion; it all comes from the same place of creativity.

I think comedy and music are both things that we need as human beings. I think that both art forms can touch people.

I think my favorite for music and spirit is Ray Gomez.

The story of our band is that we were this relentless touring band in those early years. We were leaving day jobs and going off on the road and having fun and seeing the country for the first time. We were playing Chinese restaurants and basements and record stores and houses. We were crashing on floors and it was all new and exciting. It was like a vacation. It didn't feel like work. I couldn't wait to go on tour back then. I would be sitting at my day job or my apartment, just itching to go. There were so many adventures that were about to happen.

I think when you make a movie, one of your main focuses as a director is to inspire everyone else to give their best. Like manipulation.

Music and fashion inspire each other.

I think Clapton is brilliant. He's the only one who moved me. The only one who made me want to play the guitar.

It's hard to carry a child around with you, but fortunately, in most cases, you don't have to ask a child for directions if you have a well-chosen role model ready to guide you. This is the next prescription: Take one role model, as often as needed. Set aside a few minutes today to fill this prescription so you will have it handy when you need it. Think now about who your role models have been. What do they offer? Who else do you admire, and exactly what do you admire about them? Have your roster of role models ready and waiting to help you the next time you are perplexed.

Words and ideas can change or influence the mind just like music can - yes, like a spell. Regarding the effect of my "spells" I think it varies; my music communicates with some, and I think it has had a positive influence on the minds of those who like it. I hope it helped them see the world from a different perspective.