Mike D Quotes

We were perceived as a post-grunge band.

When Soundgarden formed, we were post-punk - pretty quirky.

I was born in '76, but I didn't get into rock until the early '90s when the grunge stuff started coming out.

There hasn't been anything real since grunge. That was the last movement led by music or an art form.

This is my own little rock theory: In my mind, Nirvana slayed the hair bands. They shot the top off the poodles.

Grunge was, to me, the last big movement. It had such an impact on pop culture. We haven't really seen anything like that since, and we may never again. Things have changed; the digital age has changed things.

I like the guitar-driven music of Nirvana at its peak. At that point, I thought there was a lot of really exciting music coming out.

I love '90s grunge and punk.

My favorite type of music to sing and to listen to, you know, rock. It's not always metal, but you know, half the time it is. Metal's cool, you know? Not everybody on 'American Idol' listens to metal.

I'm always into rock n' roll and indie rock.

We didn't gel with Poison and the Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi was the best of the pop metal bands, but we never fit in with the hair metal stuff. We were never as hip as the Chili Peppers. We were in the middle.

Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that's not what I call rock.

A lot of power-pop comes out of LA, a lot of speed metal comes out of New York.

Rock music is niche.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana... plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

The grunge scene is not what I'm interested in.

I love 'Dogman' by King's X and Living Colour's 'Stain.'

The rock era, as I clock it, went from '65 to '94, from 'Like a Rolling Stone' to Kurt Cobain's death.

I don't know what metalcore is. I know what rock n' roll is... It's not rocket science.

I got into alternative rock in the early 80s, bands like Husker Du and The Replacements. Bob Mould's playing was a huge influence. It was very heavy with a lot of open tunings, which was great because I played in trios, so I used open tunings to get a fuller sound.

Punk helped musical fringes get attention. Stuff like Nirvana could never have happened without it.

We're not a Screamo band.

I love Nirvana, Weezer and a lot of pop punk stuff - Blink-182, I loved.

I'm not an '80s fan. I'm more '70s New York pre-punk kind of thing, and I guess I grew up with '90s grunge, post-punk pop music.

I used to love Kurt Cobain, when he was telling people we're a pop band. People would laugh, they thought of it as good old ironic Kurt. But he wasn't being ironic.