Ben Hopkins Quotes

The Butcherettes are led by a female singer, and they're sort of wild.

When I was in college in Philly, there was a lot of post-punks... hardcore... like, rock. Sixties, retro, proto-Strokes kind of bands.

I loved all that riot-grrl scene and Nation of Ulysses and Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear. I loved it. It was the moment sort of first growing up where bands had stopped looking like roadies.

There are so many bands I am starting to see: Waterparks, Potty Mouth - they're all garage bands that started in the garage. Kids are loving them.

As a white queer person of a certain degree of economic privilege, I think that my ability to pass as straight is a privilege that other folk I know don't have. It's important to keep in mind who really is in the most trouble and to direct our attention to assisting those people.

A lot of bands break through with their third record: the White Stripes, the Clash, the Replacements.

The Heartbreakers were what you imagine being in a band would be like - best buddies and great players and guys who took it all really seriously.

Back in 1981, the chances of a punk-rock girl band from L.A. doing what we did was completely nil.

So many queer people come out constantly for the rest of their lives, ya know? To the people they work with, to people in taxi cabs. Whatever it is, it isn't the one day.

I think there was a real lane built for indie bands during the time when Chairlift came up.

Los Angeles produced the Beach Boys. Dusseldorf produced Kraftwerk. New York produced Chic. Manchester produced Joy Division.

When we started, our style of music wasn't on MTV. It wasn't cool, and it wasn't popular. The only bands who were even kind of similar were Blink-182 and Green Day. But we don't sound like those bands, even if people throw us in that category now.

We're not the corporation of Foster the People. We're a band.

Games isn't really pop music, and neither is OPN. Both are part of the same ecosystem and both deal with exploring the undercurrents of pop music.

I've always been indie.

I used to be into Bjork and PJ Harvey, and they used to blow my mind. But there hasn't been a pop star blowing anybody's mind.

London is a dead duck, as far as innovative new music is concerned, unless you want to have your head blown off with some outrageous, rubbish, pounding dance music.

I was never really that aware of commercial things. The stuff that was really influential to me were bands like the Misfits or the Birthday Party, or things like that. If someone said, "Do you love Judas Priest?" - I never really even had a Judas Priest record. That's not what I grew up with. That wasn't really my scene, you know? That's why White Zombie never really fit. I still don't fit.

A lot of punk rock. I listen to various stuff just cuz my friends now listen to a lot of different bands. I listen to a lot of underground stuff like jungle music.

I do think there is a segment of people in Oklahoma that really do love the Flaming Lips and love this other idea of what someone from Oklahoma could be like. I've sort of become the spokesperson for this "other person" who could come from Oklahoma.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

The formats have changed so much, and even if you look at alternative music today, most of it isn't really that alternative. It's just good, strong, modern music.

You had bands like D.O.A., or Black Flag, and a whole network opened up to trailblazer a counter culture movement. I'm more interested in the less sensational type of stories.

This was an era where I was going out every night seeing Sparks, Berlin, Duran Duran, and Split Enz. Amazing acts doing really weird stuff, and I was very open to music and letting it transform me.

Punk-rock records came out and you bought whatever you could find. But Devo didn't happen for another three years. Sex Pistols didn't tour the States until '78. At that time, for me, it was really about CBGB, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, the Ramones, and Television.