Joe Perry Quotes

Men of great genius and large heart sow the seeds of a new degree of progress in the world, but they bear fruit only after many years.

I think, describing Elvis for me would be a very generous king. He was the king of rock and roll, will always be. He's whats made it possible for everyone to be performers and to do the things they do now.

Music is all about leadership and there ain't really a lot of leaders.

Presumptuously, I speak for all Who fans when I say being a fan of the Who has incalculably enriched my life. What disturbs me about the Who is the way they smashed through every door of rock & roll, leaving rubble and not much else for the rest of us to lay claim to.

Whenever I sing, I try to make it different, the sound that you've never heard before, and put something new, which people love.

Musically, I always wanted to experiment.

Spike Lee's been doing it for a long time now. We're all standing on his shoulders.

I may be gone, but Rock and Roll lives on.

It's rooted in things that maybe older people or people my age remember as being rock music. But at the same time, I don't think we're stuck in the past or retro. I think we've tried to push ourselves and experiment with what we can call Wilco music.

There would be no rock and roll or rhythm and blues without Leo Fenders' contribution ... the tone is everything

I knew the Beatles songs and how influential they are to other bands, but I'm not a fanatic, so I could look outside the box and observe.

I ain't calling me God. I'm just doing my part on where I think hip hop should go. I think hip hop should be about more money, crazier sounds, different beats.

I don't like to go into the studio with all the songs worked out and planned before hand ... you've got to give the band something to use its imagination on as well. That can make a very ordinary song come alive into something totally different ... the X-factor - so important in rock and roll - which is the feel.

The extent of his influence across jazz, across American music, and around the world has such continuing stature that he is one of the few who can easily be mentioned with Stravinsky, Picasso and Joyce. His life was the embodiment of one who moves from rags to riches, from anonymity to internationally imitated innovator. Louis Daniel Armstrong supplied revolutionary language that took on such pervasiveness that it became commonplace, like the light bulb, the airplane, the telephone.

Comedy is like music; it builds on itself. Once someone comes up with a theory or a different way of doing things, people start to mimic it on some level. That's why you go back to the guys you loved in the 80s... and it just seems tired now, because it was all foundation.

Grab a guitar, put some kind of strings on it, a banjo string, then a violin string, then a guitar string, tune it any way you want, and make some noise, and see what you get. And work on it until you get something that you think is interesting. That's all there is to art for me.

I've always associated consciousness with artists like Bob Marley or Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan. You know, artists that really talked about what was going on in the world and really artists that are timeless.

Whether I'm making my own record, or playing a guitar part, I want what I do to have an impact.

It would be wonderful if ideas could be the new rock 'n roll

You really have to try and find a way to communicate [in the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp], to respect each other's opinions and ideas, to be able to fight for something you feel is better than somebody else's idea.

Even my failures make money and become classics a year after I make them.

I just want to go back to rockin', but I'm uncertain as to what to actually do. The truth is, I never stopped thinking about rock'n'roll for a second that I'm on holiday.

I'm not the creative one. I know that. If Rory Storm hadn't come along... and then The Beatles... I would have continued running around in teddyboy gangs. Today, well... I'd probably be a laborer. I'm glad I'm not, of course. It'll be nice to be part of history... some sort of history anyway. What I'd like to be is in school history books and be read by kids.

Something new has been added, a new art of sound. Am I wrong in calling it music?

Bach is how buildings got taller. It's how we got to the moon.