Ezra Furman Quotes

I wanted to get a guitar [when I was 13] so I could play punk songs because kid taught me power chords at summer camp. He was like, "You could play all punk songs if you just learn this chord and just move it around on the guitar".

Then the early punk rock period with Television and the Ramones. That's what I loved- that's what I was listening to immediately prior to when I started to play.

We were just a bunch of high school kids who got into the Ramones together.

I've always been a rocker. Like ever since I was really young. I had a crush on the Green Day guys. That's always been what I was like and been my interest.

I came up in the punk rock scene of Seattle.

I was into the Ramones, Bad Brains, all of that, when I was in high school.

I still love it. I love lots of other music, too, and always have, but punk's the soundtrack of my youth. I think you never escape the music you're listening to and seeing when you're seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old.

I got tired of the Ramones around the time I quit and I really got into rap. I thought it was the new punk rock. LL Cool J was my biggest idol.

I used to hang out with a bunch of old punk rockers when I was a little kid.

I formed a band when I was about 13, and we all listened to punk - or what we thought was punk!

I always said the world is a better place because of Joey Ramone.

I will absolutely say that Johnny Ramone was a huge influence on me. I'm a giant Ramones fan.

My father played guitar, so I always wanted to play for that reason. But I think the biggest reason was just the '90s in general - growing up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and bands like that, and going to concerts and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.

When we were 15, my brother and I were getting really into Nirvana, Green Day, and The Beastie Boys. We started going to shows and realized we really wanted to be on stage.

I think I wanted to be a punk-rocker before I wanted to be anything else. I remember wanting a mohawk, and I wanted to cut the sleeves off of my jean jacket because I used to want to be Dirty Dan from Sha-Na-Na. This is before hip-hop was even around. I had the skinny piano tie. I had it, man.

I started listening to and playing other music in the '90s. It was after hearing other bands, like Bad Religion, cover Ramones songs that I started to like our songs again.

I first got into punk music at 17, The Adverts, just from being a bored teenager.

Most punk rock bands just have a guitar, bass and drums. The Descendents, the Ramones, you name 'em, it's just how it's always been.

I remember Green Day came down and played this South Florida club called the Plus Five. I think I was too young to go - I think I was 12 or 13. It was before Green Day were on a major label, but I loved them because they were this band who were a punk band, but they had melody.

We were all 16 and 17. When you're that age, you're just daydreaming all day. We had bands we loved - Green Day, Weezer, a lot of bands in the '90s - and we just wanted to have fun. We didn't overthink it too much.

I got into alternative rock in the early 80s, bands like Husker Du and The Replacements. Bob Mould's playing was a huge influence. It was very heavy with a lot of open tunings, which was great because I played in trios, so I used open tunings to get a fuller sound.

I moved to Naples, Florida, and by 15 I was into punk: Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, Operation Ivy. Along with the classic punk bands, like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Misfits, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat - all those bands that you get into when you're first getting into punk.

Music is really important to me; Kurt Cobain is important to me. Hearing Nirvana was pretty life-changing.

Punk was key to the early part of me playing guitar. I was really into melodic punk-rock. I related to punk more than Lynyrd Skynyrd or Yes or Van Halen.

When I was in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, Green Day was my formative entry to punk. I wish I could say I was listening to Minor Threat and Black Flag, but I wasn't. Bay Area punk bands were doing it right.