Bill Bruford Quotes

The only time I've ever really felt envy is when I've watched people make music, which made my time living in the now-legendary Jazz Loft at 821 Sixth Avenue in New York a constant source of agony and ecstasy!

I dare anyone to play like Charlie Watts.

I listen to Bill Stewart play the drums and when I have finished doing that, I listen to Bill Stewart.

When I first started drumming, when I was 14 or 15, I started writing songs. I wrote for a couple of years, but when we started 'Radiohead' it became very apparent quite quickly that I just wanted to concentrate on the drumming.

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

If I could play drums like Patrick Carney or Taylor Hawkins, I'd be a really happy person.

Anybody can be a drummer.

My brother was a drummer, and he was always, like, smashing the kit around when I was a kid, and my dad was, like, one of them old musicians, and he played in, like, loads of different bands in the '70s and '80s. Him and my brother were kind of like my main inspirations.

Prince, I think, trained amazing musicians to bring more to any musical table they come to.

I don't think I've ever met a drummer who didn't tell me that my dad was an influence. He's a tough act to follow.

I've had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.

Soccer presented no challenge to me. Playing felt like breathing: I always had a magical connection to the ball. But it didn't feel like an adventure. Music was more of a challenge and, in the end, felt more interesting.

We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it.

I only choose musicians who I think will emerge, can emerge, with their own character, while still going along with the tune in question.

Everyone knows deep in their hearts that the drums are the coolest instrument, and that a band is only as good as its drummer. So I'm all for drum solos. I'm all for drummers hamming it up. I'm all for drummers standing up and kicking over the kit.

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I listen to anything anyone gives me. I always go back to a few basic favorites. I can always listen to Django Reinhardt and hear something I haven't heard before. I like to listen to Art Tatum and Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Those are guys who never seem to run out of ideas.

Both my brothers are drummers.

I want to be the most melodic artist. 'His music ability, the way he write, his creativity is undeniable.' I want people to say that about me.

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.

I think - actually, I know - that I am, without a doubt, the world's worst drummer.

I lived at the greatest time in the history of mankind to be a musician.

Being in a band was so fun and exciting, but I was just kind of focusing more on performance and wasn't really writing the songs - I didn't really think I had a voice.

I'm a bass player and I'm a drummer - I'm a big fan of bass players.

Probably for drums, a guy I really enjoyed watching is Simon Phillips. I've seen him play with The Who and with Pete Townshend on his own - a really great drummer.