Mark Lanegan Quotes

When we toured... I was hungry to take out people like Jeff Beck in front of us; Fleetwood Mac, just before they hit; Heart, just before they hit.

I have quite an eclectic taste in music. I like Angus & Julia Stone; they are an Australian brother/sister duo. I like Adele. She is phenomenal.

The first album was more born from busking - they were the 'me-and-my-guitar' songs. Going out on the road and opening for big acts changes you. You look out at those audiences and start to think, 'OK, I need to write some music that's a little bit bigger.'

I love a lot of the '70s musicians, like Bonnie Raitt. And I love Sheryl Crow. But probably my favorite musician is a woman by the name of Schuyler Fisk.

My family is still in Los Angeles. We listened to all sorts of music: Mexican music, oldies, soul, disco and rock & roll. I was surrounded by music.

I saw footage of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley just hanging out together in Memphis when they were young guys getting started at Sun, listening to records together. That was beautiful to me.

We've played every dirty rock-and-roll club in America, and we've been opening acts for everyone.

The first time I went on stage as an adult was touring with the Johnny Cash Show. I'd sang as a child. But my grown-up initiation was as part of that band.

I Walk The Line was my third record.

In rock music, you have a big success before you turn 30, then there is sort of a decay. Then there is the reunion, and everyone is waiting to hear what you were doing when you were 20, and nobody cares what you are doing at 50 or 60. But the more I continue, the more I produce, the more I play every year in bigger places.

I actually did my first tour at the age of 10 with my dad, and it was as a country singer. We toured through Alaska, and he took me to sing at places like county fairs, hoedowns, backyard barbecues, you name it. We were usually passing around the hat for gas money to get to the next gig.

My first job in a country band was after I moved to California.

There are a lot of country artists now that are heavily influenced by hip-hop. That's not me. I was very heavily influenced by rock & roll.

Some of my biggest commercial musical influences would be people like Merle Haggard, George Jones, of course, Johnny Cash. People that wrote and sang their own stuff, I really admired.

I remember hearing people like Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac, and Elvis. My parents were big fans of them, and they were the early seeds. My brother was more into Slipknot, and I still listen to them, too, but it wasn't until I listened to Paolo Nutini that it really clicked.

For guitar players especially, blues is the foundation of rock and roll. You take country music and rock and roll and jazz and you mix it together, and that's my basic makeup.

It's tough going out as the opening act of a band especially when you're solo.

My mom was always playing Elvis around the house or ZZ Top, so there was always rock-n-roll and country being played.

I like Maroon 5, Cold Play. Snow Patrol from Ireland is very good. Adele is wonderful. I enjoy a new singer named Rumer. I don't care for rap or hip-hop.

It's important to realize that everybody who went into country music, and most everybody who went into rock and roll in the '50s, they had no more goal than a hit on the jukebox. Johnny Cash, from the very beginning, had a goal that he wanted to make music that lifted people's spirits.

In the late '70s, I was falling into the middle lane. I was way too country to be rock, and way too rock to be a country act.

Growing up, the Opry was my Hollywood.

When Dream Theater first started, we were touring in a van and playing clubs.

Dad had a way of defining himself. He couldn't put his finger on whether it was rock 'n' roll or country.

Whether you like punk, grunge, or early rock and roll, there's probably something in there you've been living with your whole life and you didn't even know it was jazz.