Alissa Quart Quotes

Lou Reed was a hero because he was an anti-hero.

I heard the Velvet Underground and that changed things when I was like, 15.

I knew about things like Iggy Pop and The Velvet Underground, weirdly, before I knew about David Bowie. I didn't know what David Bowie was, when I was a kid. I thought he was like Visage.

I do a cover of a Velvet Underground song, and they were one of the most important bands, for me.

The Southern California arena rock, hair metal, laidback hippie garden culture - for many growing up in the '70s and '80s, none of it made us who we were like Lou Reed did.

When the punk rock thing happened, I thought, 'Right, I have one chance here to be seen as part of some wider social phenomenon.'

Lou Reed's spirit and the way he did things was so important. Him and his music mean so much to me as the years go by.

Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or appropriate for any group.

The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life.

I will always love the Clash, because I loved them so much when I was fourteen, and I love how you can start a conversation with almost literally any dude about the Clash.

England in the '60s and the '70s was everything that history has said; it was phenomenally exciting, musically.

I formed a band when I was about 13, and we all listened to punk - or what we thought was punk!

When I was 20, political music was the uncoolest thing on earth.

Every now and again, the alternative culture is cherished by the mainstream for what it is, rather than how it should be, like the mainstream popular music.

I'm absolutely obsessed with The Jesus And Mary Chain and Patti Smith, but I'm a massive pop fan. I love pop culture, It's a total reflection of the zeitgeist.

Lou Reed is something like a personal favorite of mine, but you could always put me into that drawer of singers who can't really sing, who speak their songs.

The photograph, the clothes, the sets - this was about 1974, and I started hanging out with my friend Richard Sold, who was playing in a band with Patti Smith.

When I was 14 years old, I was a huge fan of the Velvets, the Stooges and the Modern Lovers. They are my three favourite bands. I never get sick of 'em.

Drugs, sex, booze, all the stuff that we wanted to do. The problem was that we didn't want to learn the top 40 'cause most of the music was awful and we had this other idea about what we wanted to do.

I grew up listening to classic rock - the Kinks, Genesis, The Who, Pink Floyd.

No part of Manhattan these days really has the same vibe I get from a Ramones song or a Velvet Underground song.

The period right before punk rock where people like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop were really strong.

I've always been a rocker. Like ever since I was really young. I had a crush on the Green Day guys. That's always been what I was like and been my interest.

As a teen, I heard the second Velvet Underground album, 'White Light/White Heat,' and it was too much for my limited scope of appreciation. It was intense, but I didn't get it.

I've always had a teenage thread running through my music. On my first album, I had a song called 'Confessions of a Teenage Girl.' It's about using your feminine wealth to get what you want.