Johnny Christ Quotes

My favorite band of all time is The Clash. The thing I love about The Clash is they started out as guys who could barely play three chords. They dabbled in reggae, punk, rap, jazz. They came to a sound that could only be defined as The Clash. It was impossible to say what it was. I admire them for that.

What I do is a bit broader in scope than a heavy metal band like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, ACDC and so on.

I've always had influences from all over the place, like Mr. Bungle and Primus. As a band, we try not to focus too much on where it's coming from, because we're always listening to music.

When we did 'Eliminator,' at the time, it was experimental for us. It obviously turned out real successful, but at the time, we caught crap about it from some of our old fans. They thought we were deserting our roots or our old style or whatever.

I'm the renegade of funk. I've made house, techno, rock, funk, reggae... That's why I've been on so many different labels.

They believed you can't mix rock, country, and rap, and that crossover is dead. I always knew it would work. And it will always work as long as you're really into it and like what you're doing.

I'm not really allowed to talk about the Dead though. I think when we are at our best, we definitely do things that the Dead or no other band could do. We explore things and take things to the extreme.

The biggest misconception about us is that we're just a rock band. We think our music is a cross-section of many genres; a hybrid of what the six of us have grown up on.

My roots and Victor's are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they're tremendously exciting players.

I wouldn't go so far as to make 'You Don't Own Me' a tango or 'It's My Party' a hip-hop thing. Believe me, those things have been suggested to me. But I thought if I could stay true to the song, the arrangements would work. I'm really enjoying singing them.

Free music, to me, is music without boundaries. It's music that... says you don't have to play a blues in three chord change. See what I'm saying? Music that can go from any range.

I never thought of us as a punk band, a metal band, or a new wave band. Just as a band band.

I always loved bands who would try to change their sound radically album to album, experiment in one album and revert back in another.

I would much rather hear a song that's written from a fresh perspective, using ideas that have existed in rock & roll for 50 years, than something that is incredibly abrasive to my ears but is new.

We built something very special with Gaslight, and we don't want to mess with that sound too much. But I've always wanted to do a record where I can put strings or organs or pianos or whatever on it.

Everybody in Lynyrd Skynyrd loves different styles of music, and our minds are very open when it comes to writing our songs and making the band true to what the band is, but also stepping out and doing something current.

I like to experiment when it comes to music.

We don't want to box ourselves within any type of genre, you know? Whatever feels good, if it moves us and we like it, we get on it and make it our own. That's what we do.

Swavey is a musical genre that I came up with to describe artists who are too talented to stay in a box with their music.

I think that, as well as Strapping Young Lad kind of having the name for themselves based on brutality and aggression, I think there's also something to be said to the fact that every Strapping record is different. They're all different.

I've never been one to just play safe music and think that's all there is to it.

And I'm interested in writing music that takes risks. My point is that maybe the term EDM is pinned on me and my buddies, but maybe it'll be less so if I experiment.

I think New Order have got their own sound. But what we like to do is experiment, using dance music and other things.

Whether it's a song that might deviate from an artists' usual sound or even if it's still very much in their world, I think the more people opening themselves up creatively to collaborate with others, the better.

It's amazing to me to see how bands evolve and how they take all their influences and come up with their own sound.