Bob Mortimer Quotes

When I heard Elvis and his 'Sun Sessions,' I went mad for it. I was about thirteen.

I got into music around the age of eight years old, and I think the reason why was because I discovered the Spice Girls. I fell in love with them, and it was the first time I ever felt like the music was just directed to me.

I looked at Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and the boys up there thinking, I want to be that.

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.

When I was around 11, my dad took me to see Santana live, and then I got 'Sacred Fire,' and everything changed for me.

I wanted to be a composer before anything else. And my sister was listening to Led Zeppelin in the other room! When I heard that, it was a game-changer.

I grew up loving classic rock music - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones - and then one day I heard 'Baby One More Time' on the radio and I thought 'What is this?' I was eight and it changed my life.

When I go to shows, I'm really looking forward to hearing the songs I know. I don't like it when a band tries to expose me to new stuff.

I've got rock 'n' roll in my blood.

Some of the wise boys who say my music is loud, blatant and that's all should see the faces of the kids who have driven a hundred miles through the snow to see the band... to stand in front of the bandstand in an ecstasy all their own.

I originally wanted to go into sports, but my first concert was KISS at the shooting of 'KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park.' The minute I saw Gene and Paul... it was all over. I knew that's what I wanted to do.

I first started going to shows when I was about 16 - seeing local bands. I mean, I loved music before that, and I played a bit of guitar when I was younger and thought maybe I'd become a guitar teacher or something, but when I saw other kids doing it, I was like, 'Whoa, these are great bands! I can do it, too.'

One of the things that the Grateful Dead did, way back when, was we spent a lot of time just turning each other on to music. If somebody was listening to something that really caught their ear, they'd make sure that everybody else in the band heard it, and that came home for us in innumerable ways.

Playing in those bars where people really don't care about your music really gives you an appreciation for when you get to a concert, and people are singing your original music - it's been a great journey, but I definitely didn't have an interest in music as a kid until I was a teenager.

I think the message of the Live/Counting Crows tour is that, aside from what's going on trendwise, if you dig a little, you can always find something to inspire you.

I don't really know how to describe how I got into music - it kind of just happened.

It's still as exciting to play records I've not heard before as it was when I was young. There's not much that makes me feel like that besides making music. And they definitely feed into each other.

It's neat to hear a new generation of musicians come up.

Duane Eddy is somebody I wanted to play like. I discovered him before The Beatles, and he totally got to me. He sent me a note back in 1977 and said that he really liked what Cheap Trick were doing. That's one of those 'Wow!' moments, you know?

As I listened more and more to the music that moved me, I gained more fascination with America.

We went to see Lenny Kravitz last summer in Austin and he was awesome. His show was just awesome. I mean, like, when you see some of these great bands, you sit there and think, man, if only we were that tight, you know?

My older brother was the guitar player in the neighborhood band. My parents were the cool ones that had the basement for rehearsal. Rather than hang with my peers after school, I wanted to just listen to the band. More than that, I wanted to play.

There are people I'll always love to listen to, and I'm always ending up discovering new songs by them, which is crazy. Like Stevie Wonder.

When I was growing up, when I was 11 years old I was listening to The Mothers of Invention. You know, I mean I was a Frank Zappa fan in Arkansas.

I'm a musician, so for the most part I've always thought that the musicians were equally as inspiring to listen to - maybe more so, in some cases - in addition to the artists.