Alex Van Halen Quotes

I came up in a time when Springsteen, the Stones, Dylan, and the Beatles were still dominant. For every magazine cover with a new band, there were five covers with one of those guys.

I don't wanna be Courtney Love - I wanna be Kurt Cobain.

As for Guns N' Roses, I don't think there's ever a chance of a reunion.

This kid's excited because he's with Bad Company and I'm excited because I'm with Chuck Berrys' son.

My influences were Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry.

To me, my peers are Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger. I'm not talking age-wise, but in terms of careers. Madonna. Those are my peers. And I'm okay with that.

The Rolling Stones were one of the best bands ever, and 'Sticky Fingers' is one of the best rock albums I've ever heard.

I've been blessed. I grew up and played and worked and created with the Freddie Mercury, the Jimi Hendrix, the Keith Richards, the John Paul Jones of my generation.

It's a miracle that David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop are actually still alive today, given how hard they lived.

Led Zeppelin would never have reformed if he or Jimmy Page were bald.

Ringo isn't the best drummer in the world. He isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles.

I never wanted to be Keith Richards or Jimmy Page.

Eddie Cochran - I never got to see him live, but he could play. Him and Buddy Holly, they were the best guitarists. They could get a good raunchy beat going.

Most of our great influences were male rockers, like Led Zeppelin.

When you grow up in Atlanta, joining Lynyrd Skynyrd is like joining the Rolling Stones.

It's always Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Waits for me - the big three.

You see a documentary, you want to see it on Aerosmith or Jon Bon Jovi or Kiss, a band that's been established and sold millions of records and done something notable.

I like a lot of older rock 'n' roll artists, like legends like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. They really influenced me to be very, very androgynous and very commanding, and very very - I wouldn't say odd, but I would say eccentric.

The Seventies was a golden era. Back then we had some incredible talent with bands like the Undertones, the Rolling Stones and artists like Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.

It was a lot of fun in the back of that bus with Ritchie Valens, Buddy and The Big Bopper sharing each other's songs.

It wasn't until the fourth or fifth Van Halen record that people would go, 'Wow! You're singing backgrounds on those records. That's not David Lee Roth.' And I go, 'Hell, no! That's not David Lee Roth.'

Whatever people want to say, we go out there every night, and we give tribute to the songs that my brother wrote, to Ronnie and Allen Collins and Steve Gaines and Leon Wilkeson and everybody. We pay tribute every night to those people who have gone on.

I got to see The Beatles a couple of times. In fact, I saw their last performance ever in San Francisco. The Beatles were massive to me - I learned so much from them.

[joking about the length of the Rolling Stones' career] You have the sun, you have the moon, you have the air that you breathe - and you have the Rolling Stones!

There will be a Led Zeppelin as long as there's a Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. This isn't a nostalgia band playing the hits forever. If anything ever happened and somebody left - which I really can't see happening - I don't think we'd bother to carry on. The magic for me is as it is now.