Tom DeLonge Quotes

Artie travels all the time. The rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar.

I quit my band in New York City in 1969 and I got really angry at them. I got angry at one of my guitar players and I dove over the drum set and we got into a fight.

The reason I don't tour is that I don't know how to front a band. What would I do? I can't really play anything well enough to deal with that situation.

I think I failed miserably on NewsRadio. I was very nervous because of the caliber of the cast - especially Dave Foley - so I think I did a terrible job.

It's always a bit much, being in a band with your brother. We fight all the time, but it's kind of comical.

Sometimes the problem is not the people in the band, but the people around the band.

When you're in a band, inevitably, someone is siding with someone else, and you're fighting over something that happened in the band five years ago.

Obviously nobody likes it when you walk offstage, including your band.

I distinctly remember a conversation with my band in the van where I was having a complete meltdown. It was 1984, I think, and I was huddled in the back corner of our van and saying, "I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this." I didn't want to play any more shows. I just wanted to stop.

I fix things. Believe me, when you hear about tough phone calls I'm having, don't worry about it.

I've always felt kind of safe on stage, protected. I've talked to other performers about this and they feel the same things, particularly in the live arena. I never get nervous going on stage to do a play. Doing film or television I'll have more butterflies.

I used to throw up before I went on stage, every time. Even though it's only 200 people in the audience, and a movie like RoboCop is going to be seen by many, many people, I know I'd be much more nervous doing a play than being on set shooting.

Iraq is sort of a situation where you've got a guy who drove the bus into the ditch. You obviously have to get the bus out of the ditch, and that's not easy to do, although you probably should fire the driver.

I often think that presentations are more difficult than the work itself.

When I started performing I was like, "Holy hell, how am I going to survive this?" I was giving it my all in 15 minutes but now I had to do it for two hours.

If all you've got to do is a couple of lines, dear Jesus, don't let them down. Other people are taking responsibility.

failure in the theater is more public, more brilliant, more unreal than in any other field.

The first step to problem solving is figuring out who's got the problem.

I've never been able to read for anything, and every time I have, I've never gotten the part. And I don't know why that is. I just can't. Reading or auditioning for something... It's like it's this mental block in my brain, and I just can't do it. But when people ask you to do stuff without making you go through that, it's a much more pleasant experience.

I think I'm getting there, but it's very hard to perform at my absolute peak when an awful lot of people come just to make their presence known, when the lights go down and all you can hear is people screaming.

Responsibilites and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value.

It's pretty intense to have someone (the camera) looming there when you are singing a song but it's sort of invigorating too.

It's a sick thing, right: people are afraid of public speaking. I do public speaking, except my public speaking involves the audience only having one type of emotion and one type of reaction. If they have anything other than laughter, it's a failure. That's an absurd thing for a human to try to seek. The main thing to realize is that whatever I say, it's my truth and I believe in it, and if I don't get a laugh off that, then it's not working.

There's a side to being in a band that some people embrace and some don't: the fact that you're performing and you care about how it comes across.

I have horrible stage fright - you know how you go through the bi-polar stage fright thing? Then you go on drugs to get over the stage fright and perform, but then you're not funny at all.