Steve Swallow Quotes

Age isn't a barrier to playing the bass, and I've definitely improved over the years, although maybe I'm not as flash as I once was. But looking back, I can't imagine a life without a guitar.

Violin playing is a physical art with great traditions behind it.

A lot of other bass players have told me I'm the only bass player who plays with a pick but sounds like he's playing with the thumb and fingers, which is a great compliment.

I like to practice on the bass, but I don't do it as often as I should.

Ever since I picked up a bass, I've written songs.

I listened to many different types of instruments and music, and have always tried to look at the bass as an instrument as opposed to only a bass.

When your hair is rising, that's when you know it's a good song - that's happened to me with some artists and some songs, John Lennon songs or when Nina Simone sings. It's great to make those moments yourself.

A bass should sound like a bass with the thump of the finger against the wood, like it began with stand up.

I got my first real bass guitar in my hands when I was 14 - a 1957 Fender Precision, which is still hanging on the wall in my front room. I loved the heaviness of it and the feel of the wood. I still do.

I like to believe that I play bass like Dusty Hill, and that's something nobody else can do as well as me. I'm the best Dusty Hill I know.

It's been fun to just play bass in a band and play live but be in the background.

I've been playing the bass guitar for almost twelve years and fretless for about nine, so I've got quite a bit of mileage in my hands already.

If the orchestra's not enjoying itself, the concerto will not succeed, with the players confined to using half an inch of bow.

My first instrument was bass, and the first thing that I remember learning to play that was better than a few notes was Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain.' If you're the guy who penned that bass riff, then you should probably be in some sort of fantasy band.

I'll never forget the first time I heard Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Partita in E Major' for violin. It was in a late-1980s television commercial, of all things. As a young violinist at the time, it enchanted me - it was so pure, precise, and unadorned.

I used to aspire to being more of a traditional bass player, to be honest. People say I play it like a guitar - and I was a guitar player when I was growing up. I started learning when I was eight, and that's what I was fascinated with in my teen years.

I'm a rock and roll kid, but to me, rock and roll isn't just four idiots banging their instruments really loud.

Playing in an orchestra is where I learned the most about music.

Hopefully, somebody who's hearing my music, it's relatable to them, and it strikes a cord with them.

We've had the good fortune of performing to live music a few times in our career and it always creates a different dynamic.

I play in tune like a cello player and use legitimate vibrato. There are no tricks; it's just all in the hands!

It's difficult to explain exactly how I react to music, but if it makes me feel anything at all, then I'll have some kind of emotional relationship to it. That's what defines good music to me - if it makes me truly feel something.

Music is a kind of magical thing, and you can't make magic every time, but you try. Every once in a while it has that magic, and the audience knows that. I probably miss it more than I hit it, but I think that's what all musicians try for.

I used to play the drums when I was, like, 5 through 10.

I just want people to leave a show and go, 'That was the most rockin' show I've ever seen.' I hope people can just roll with me a little bit - you know?