Ronald Isley Quotes

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.

The name Van Halen, the family legacy, is going to go on long after I'm gone.

Playing music has always felt very natural. You know, you do try to do other things, and you do learn lessons that way, but, eventually - well... if your dad is a plumber, you become a plumber. It's the family business, and I felt like I was taking over the family business.

I would like to be able to do a song with Ray Charles, before we both get too old.

Music lives in my mother - she's played in bands in Detroit and toured and did the whole thing. So I have somebody who's done it all to just talk to. And we write songs together.

It's always a dream come true to do music with your pops. And your son.

My mother and father are big musical heroes of mine. I think it was because it was the first memories that I have of actually hearing music and falling in love with it and wanting to be a part of it in some way.

Working with Mellencamp, I made new fans, people that may have never heard of me. They may have heard I was related to the Carter Family or Johnny Cash somehow, but what they got was pure Carlene.

I have loved music so much from when I was little, and I don't know whether it was because I saw my dad doing it and then I got the idea; I don't know what came first... But I always had a hairbrush in the mirror singing. I was always with him backstage; I would go out and be pulled in for the last song.

That's always been a dream for me, to be able to collaborate and make music with the people that inspired you to make music.

There's something intrinsically Australian about a bunch of brothers and school friends getting together as a band at a very young age and all pulling together as a band at a very young age and all pulling together as mates to make something happen.

We don't mind being ripped apart, but don't rip the songs apart. They're like our kids.

I've got guys in my band that have been there for about 35 years. They're great players, and we still enjoy doing the music.

From the first moment that I can remember, I had identified myself as a bass player and it had everything to do with my father, who was a bass player. And he loved music, you know, as much as anybody I've ever seen. And that dynamic I just thought as somehow was a straight pass to me.

The greatest thing about doing this movie was that Chris and I both were involved in folk music in the '60s. I had a group, but I don't think it was at the same level as Chris, because he's an amazing musician.

I came from a folk-family background. Although we weren't really the all-singing, all-dancing-around-the-piano folkies or anything like that, there is that idea of singing and playing with your parents and your family and your cousins.

If a band is really good and the chemistry is unique, it should continue. But I guess David is just very happy doing his solo career. He's got a different band every time he goes out.

Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community.

Well I'm a third-generation musician. My Grandfather's a musician and my father and mother were both musicians and so I'm a musician. It was just natural that I should be a musician 'cause I was born into the family.

My mother was a singer, and both of her sisters were singers. There was always music around.

It is always an honor to work with those that share your passion for music and just enjoy making great music.

But ya know what, I am a part of something that happened. I'm a part of the music that happened. My voice is one more instrument, is what it is. So that's the way I feel about people who play on sessions.

The first time we performed as a duo, we had already been playing together in various situations.

Without a doubt, my richest relationships are my long-term friendships with musical partners, because we make music together. That's what we love to do with our lives.

For a musician to be good, he has to have humanity and care about the other guy. And as for blues - in a sense, black people have kept this country alive and given us our entire musical heritage.