Rory Gallagher Quotes

There were so many specific things from high school jazz band that I remembered: the conductor searching out people who were out of tune, or stopping and starting me for hours in front of the band as they watched.

I was really conscious of that when I went in because I felt that I was pretty solid on the first one, but I didn't have the groove exactly where I wanted it.

Sorry, no, I'm never satisfied with my drumming.

There's not an orchestra in the world that doesn't have weaknesses. None of us can play everything well. The repertoire is just too big.

Every riff had to be perfect and heavy, collectively what we wanted it to be. If there was one person in the room who went, 'Heh, I don't think it is there yet, guys,' we'd scrap the whole song. I think that took a little bit of songwriting maturity for us.

I'd gotten used to recording background vocals perfectly, doing 18 takes of them until they line up. Not recognizing the inherent beauty in each performance, but just making something good.

I am notoriously hard on myself in terms of working on new material and while I am critical of my performance on the Led Zeppelin material, I am way more critical of my own stuff. I'm pretty hard on myself.

I'm just really interested, when a band plays and they think they sucked from a band perspective.

I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.

As the days progressed, I felt as if YNK' was my first film. That is because the director was hellbent on perfectionism. He was insistent about getting the best out of me.

I can't play piano well enough without making mistakes.

Obviously I'm not the best singer; obviously I'm not the best piano player or the best songwriter, but I'm doing my best on all of 'em. Once you have all those things in place, then I think everything falls the way it should.

Every project I got, whether I was playing a friend or doing television, I just wanted to prove myself: every single take, cue, and rehearsal is an audition. That's my approach.

In the past, I put too much pressure on myself. I went out there and I tried so hard to get the ball in the hole, I tried so hard to hit the perfect shots.

Growing up in a bluegrass or acoustic-oriented world, the musicians become so focused on performance, as far as playing. We tend to overanalyze the notes, so you're always trying to sharpen everything up.

If I cannot be the best or operate at the best highest level, then I need to go away.

The musical training taught me to focus my mind, before playing in an orchestra taught me how to truly concentrate. If you miss your moment in an orchestra, there is no forgiving.

My love of performers is not really different than my love for painters. Everyone's really high-strung and trying to do the best they can.

Even though I've won numerous titles and an Olympic gold medal, there are still so many faults in my performance that I can honestly hardly bear to watch the videos back.

Unless I play like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, it'll be hard to give myself 100 out of 100.

We're very much perfectionists, so when we're putting on a huge show and want to play to the best of ability, we rehearse intensely. And I have a guitar pretty much in my hand for at least five hours before doing a show. I'm just noodling and mucking around and working on some of the songs here and there.

I don't feel like I'm very good at making music.

If I had a pull on 'One of These Nights,' on the first high note on 'One of These Nights,' that was just a tiny hair flat or something, I could just feel Henley's eyes scouring into the back of my head. No mistakes were allowed, and it really kept the quality at a high level.

I'm the type of personality who just can't settle for less.

Definitely an important aspect of my playing is keeping my hands in sync.