John Rzeznik Quotes

For me, I guess music has always been the through-line. You know, I played guitar from a really young age, and my dad played, and my cousin gave me a drum kit when I was 13, and I played bass guitar, so, you know, it was definitely always in the house.

My dad played guitar, and so there were always guitars kicking around the house that I was never allowed to touch. My cousin gave me a twin-neck electric guitar for one of my birthdays. It was amazing. Even though it was mine, I was never allowed to pick it up.

My dad was a professional musician; my mom played, too, but just for fun. All my siblings played. The house was full of music books, videos, albums. I guess it's not surprising that I ended up becoming a musician.

Well, my sister played trumpet. Can you imagine having a sister blowing the trumpet around the house, Fred? And my brother, he played piano. Everybody was playing some kind of music, so it was natural for me to get into it.

I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.

When I was younger, playing piano and guitar were all things that I wanted to do for a short period of time, like any kid.

I come from a big family of musicians, so I was lucky enough to grow up with guitars all around the house. Even though I didn't really know much at the time, my brother had a Les Paul Goldtop, and my dad always had this Fender or some bizarre Pedulla-Orsini guitar.

I started playing mandolin when I was three or four years old because I was too small to be playing guitar. As I got older and more responsible with holding instruments, I was allowed to play my mom's guitar that she had.

Music's always been in my home. My dad plays guitar, and I grew up listening to cumbia and salsa and boleros.

Music was something that nobody in my family does.

My family is all musicians - my dad plays drums, my mom plays flute, my older brother plays drums, my little brother plays drums and piano. For some reason, I didn't get the memo, so I just play bass.

I grew up with my parents always listening to rock music. My dad wanted me to play guitar, but I always had more of an ear for drums. He really wanted me to be a guitar player, like him.

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.

I think my love of music comes from my dad. I was born with an ear for music, like him, and started with the piano when I was 4 but fell in love with the drums. My dad always has music playing.

I always loved the guitar, from when I was quite little. My dad had a G banjo at the house that he played. When he had parties, my sisters always played piano, and my dad played banjo.

I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five.

Music's been with me from the get-go. It was always around me as a kid. Dad got me my first guitar when I was 11 and, at school, if you wanted to be cool you had to be in a band.

I grew up singing. My mother was a music teacher.

I'm probably the only kid in history whose parents made him stop taking music lessons. They made me stop studying the accordion.

Music is something I couldn't live without. My dad was into music, he played for pleasure - guitar, piano. I started off doing jazz, singing with a lot of fabulous musicians here in London before I went to the States. And I still take piano lessons every Wednesday.

My grandfather played a mandolin, so I got my hands on that. Then on down to a banjo, and I found I couldn't play any kind of soft or mournful music with that so I took up the fiddle in my late 20s or early 30s - and that was far too late. But it keeps me off the streets. It has been a love of mine since I was 17 maybe.

As a musician, I don't think I'm the greatest guitar player. I'm a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.

I started singing when I was five. I grew up the youngest of four kids who all studied classical piano, so you could say I've been listening to music ever since the moment of conception.

I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.

I started playing drums at about seven or eight. My mom used to let me play with the pots and pans, and instead of telling me to stop like most moms would, she just let me do it. So the noise kind of turned into music. From that point on, musically, that's what I want to do: start creating beats.