Merry Clayton Quotes

I'll be making music 'til the day I die. I've done all kinds of stuff, and more is coming.

It was very satisfying knowing I could come in not really knowing what I was going to do, and at the end of the session feeling that I'd really done interesting guitar work and knowing that I'd really contributed to the music.

In the beginning of my career, I wanted to be chased by girls more than anything - that's why I got the guitar. By the time we were in ABBA, the music was the only important thing.

Let's pretend my career in music is a bell. Whether you like my music or not is up to you. But you've got to admit I rang that bell pretty hard and pretty often.

I did some stage when I was a kid, around 16 or so. I was living in Melbourne and had a band. I was quite young. We weren't very good. Then I found a band in Perth. We played around for three years. We're in the 'History of Rock'N'Roll,' a book about Perth music.

I have continued to paint; my father - who was savaged by the critics - continued to paint until practically the last week of his life.

By 1969, when I celebrated 45 years in the music business, I also had 45 people in our musical family.

We never really dreamed of being a band until it just naturally happened. All of a sudden, we were like, 'Maybe we should take this kind of seriously, because people seem to like it.'

When the new country came out ten to 15 years ago, people my age were almost too old. But it never stopped me. I never stopped writing. I never stopped recording.

We always talked [with Andrew Ridgeley] about when it would happen - we always knew that I would go on to have a solo career.

One thing I am certain of is that, if I have done anything good in music, it was, first, because of my father, and second, because of my wife.

I was a jazz drummer, and it was my life for a while: what I lived and breathed every day.

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.

Obviously you have to have rhythm. If you have rhythm, then you can play anything you need. If you have rhythm and you love music, then play and play and play until you get to where you want to get. If you can pay the rent, great. If you can't, then you'd better be having fun.

I was going to record a solo album when I was 15 on a four-track. I started working on it, but then Fall Out Boy happened. The band was awesome and took me in a totally different direction. I don't regret it at all, but the band delayed the record I had been planning.

I think it was 37 years that I did music.

I can easily say I've done everything I've wanted in music.

The first record I made when I was 17. Labels merged and plans didn't work out, but plans never work out as planned. But I never stopped making music. I never had a backup plan. I never thought, 'Maybe I should just write, or maybe I should...' I just kept going.

I made an album I'm very proud of, and that's about it.

I never gave up on music, and I feel like music never gave up on me.

As a result, I had to get my own playground which was my band Colours. This band lasted for about eight years and then the air was out of it and it was time to finish.

Making music, if you're a real musician, you carry on regardless in this world.

After I left Texas and went to California, I had a hard time getting anyone to play anything that I was writing, so I had to end up playing them myself. And that's how I ended up just being a saxophone player.

I didn't imagine getting to 50, let alone still be playing music. When I was 18, I thought it'd all be over by the time I was 21.

My parents were so far from the music world that they couldn't conceive how you could make a living. But for me, it was the only solution for the rest of my life.