Chrissie Hynde Quotes

It was when I saw Iggy Pop, that's what did it for me. That changed my life pretty much.

I've always been the first to admit that Jimi was a very big influence on my early stuff.

Rock n' roll means so much more to people; it enriches the culture. Also, it inspires people; there's no half-feeling. When I first got into it, I was inspired by people who had come before me, and I found myself in the position of handing that on.

Obviously, any living musician born after 1960 has been touched by rock and roll. It's the music of our time, and it's 'in the air,' as Steve Reich would say. My experience of it is just really direct because I'm actually playing in a collaborative band.

It probably all started with The Beatles, and then I guess it goes out from there. Springsteen... Fleetwood Mac... I mean, that's all so inherent in us that when we're making records now, we take a lot from the artists who are around us.

But people are now realising why I was playing bass with Hendrix.

It's not until I hear songs that I've done, that I realize how much of an inspiration music from the '60s and '70s has been.

I grew up listening to a lot of soul music, which has probably informed the way that I sing on my tracks.

It's like this - these five members have been influenced of course by other groups, because that's where this generation's groups came from - an environment like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and The Who. People like that.

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

Guys like me and Ray Charles, when we was coming up through our days, country music and soul music was just a very thin line between the two.

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.

I am one of the biggest Laura Nyro fans. I still listen to that stuff incessantly. Laura Nyro does not belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Songwriter Hall of Fame? Absolutely.

Half of the modern world goes back as far as Pearl Jam. The real historians go back to U2. But they need to go back further. They have to go back to the '50s and '60s, where things started. That's how you get to be your own personality, by studying the masters. Rock and roll was white kids trying to make black music and failing, gloriously!

The New York Dolls are the only band that we grew up on that we haven't played with.

The other guys in Hootie were into rock. I brought the country influence.

As a young man growing up in that era, I was very influenced by Hendrix and took to a wah wah, and I learned how to really use one effectively as Hendrix did.

There's so many STP songs that are just classic to me, and just so influential in my musical growth.

If it wasn't for guys like Gary Moore, I wouldn't exist. He not only proved that the blues could rock but it could draw a crowd as well. All of which made a huge impression on me.

It's something I've always been passionate about - which is the power of rock and roll itself. I'm a walking example of its power, 'cause I was totally altered in the seminal years of Live by bands like U2 and R.E.M., U2 in particular.

Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.

We soaked up everything from Beethoven to Chopin to Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.

Composers don't just sit in a room and write things that are in their heads, they actually listen to a lot of music, pop music, jazz, rock and roll, any combination of music that catches their ear.

Everybody starts by imitating their heroes. For me it was Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters.

We've all been influenced by other people...If Minnie Riperton never existed, would I have even thought of singing in that (upper) register? I doubt it.