Duff McKagan Quotes

Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can't.

It's easy to put on a Deep Purple record and say, 'That sounds great.' But why? Part of it is individual practice, but by playing together, a talent of meshing happens.

I never considered myself a songwriter, but now since I've been working with Nick Lowe, I am contributing to an extent. But I'm the guitarist and he's not, so we compliment each other in a way.

The whole period has taught me that I enjoy being part of an ensemble rather than just a front man. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy that too, but I get more enjoyment out of really listening to everyone.

Find someone you can jam with. That's a big deal. When you play with someone else, you gotta work together to get the thing started and in time, working and in the groove.

The longevity of a band is really contingent on loving the people that you're making music with and being able to get along in the long run. It's just like being married, except you're married to more than one person!

I hope it isn't exclusively true, but I often find that collaboration is the best way... to reach my highest musical place. Because I get so inspired by another good musician; I feed off that.

You write a song; you know what you want it to sound like. With a band like ours, it's more about the collective. It's important everyone feels expressed and represented.

I tend to want to form bands and then create new music within them. Queen was an exception, and we joined forces because it just seemed to work when we played together.

In some ways, it's more rewarding to hear someone interpret a piece of music that you're a part of.

There would be no Static-X if I didn't write all the songs.

Keith Richards has some sort of quote that says 'it takes two people to write a song,' and I'm of that school of thought, too.

Being a three piece, maybe it's easier. You only have two other guys, musically, and everything else to contend with and work with.

I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.

But mostly, I wrote songs and Viv wrote songs.

We're all players and musicians and we sure all get along good. We just clicked right off the bat. We started playing and then we almost immediately started recording.

I just think that with music, it's kind of like life, and so the people you work with, you generally develop a relationship. You don't have to try to explain things. You just know. It's like you're in the band together and striving for the same goal.

I didn't write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn't.

The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he's the guy that made that sound, he's the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don't have a band, you know.

The rehearsal process is the most important thing to me, so working with colleagues who are effusive, thoughtful, young and vivacious is really inspiring as a musician.

Success and the art of making music are two different things for me.

We all write the music, and then Mark and Tom write the lyrics.

I love country music, blues, and punk, and one day I might make those kinds of records.

My wife and I were in a band and worked together on and off since we were 19 or 20.

It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before.