Alternative Music Scene Quotes

I was talking to somebody about the L.A. hardcore scene, and they were saying that it was hard for them to picture punk rock at the beach. Like, the aesthetic didn't mix or something - black forms in the sand.

I started out playing in clubs. I always like existing under ground and over ground at the same time.

I think that was going on with bands like The Strokes was that the idea of the band, a real band, was making a comeback. My brother in law is an example- before he was listening to some country music, even some of that awful nu-metal stuff , but there weren't many options really.

I wasn’t thriving socially, so I stayed in my room and played guitar all the time, at the time, I thought I was inventing a new sound that would change the whole outlook of music. I’ve discovered in the last few years that it was just the Seattle Sub Pop sound.

There's not a lot of precedent for weird, bald musicians in the Lower East Side making records in their bedrooms and going on to sell a lot of copies of the record. Especially if you look at the pop climate.

I think that breaking into the mainstream - it was just the right cycle of music for us in Blink-182. People were kind of over the boy-band, pop-princess, manufactured sensibility, and were excited for guitars and angst and energy and enthusiasm, which is our thing.

Meeting Perry Farrel was kind of cool. He's such an icon, and I was such a fan of Jane's Addiction.

I didn't really know about Marilyn Manson - it's not my sort of music, not exactly the sort of thing I would curl up and listen to!

Studios are passe for me. I'd rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement.

In many ways, I have no idea what would have become of me if punk hadn't happened, because the '70s turned out to be so stale, and so boring, and so backward compared to what had come just before. We were too young to have fully experienced the '60s and the fervor of the anti-war movement.

One of my first favorite records was the debut Garbage album, which I heard when I was very young. Shirley Manson is a great female vocalist and performer and I admire her for that.

Being a niche kind of artist, you're not going to make a lot of friends in the traditional music biz.

College radio is a very important medium that needs to survive in difficult economic times when some stations are being sold off and shut down. College radio is the future for broadcasting stars and pioneers of tomorrow, and we as a band, Coldplay, support the vital mission of college radio and we also support College Radio Day, the day when college radio comes together.

With Soapkills, we were lucky. We started at a time of transition where things were not ready, nothing was available.

I think in the world of rock music or whatever it's called - anything outside of Nashville - there's a lot more freedom within that industry to do whatever you want to do.

They were like the man with the dungeon stone and gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining.

I like to go on YouTube to see the underground sounds, what the kids are listening to, and kind of gauge my music around that.

Mixtape legend, underground kings... Looking for the right way to do the wrong things

There's a band in a garage right now writing songs for an album that will do the same thing 'Nevermind' did some 20 years ago. We don't know who and where, but it will f***ing happen again. All it takes is for that storm to break.

Back in the day, in '91 or so, I tried to interview Fugazi for Rolling Stone, which the band felt stood for everything they detested about corporate infiltration of music. They said, 'We'll do the interview if you give us a million dollars of cash in a suitcase.' Which was their way of saying no.

Playing in an independent rock band will eventually make you equal parts truck driver, gladiator and mule. Glamour is for those with trust funds.

I think to find an escape route out of a music industry that is becoming more and more focused on making money.

I'm not an artist that has a big, huge radio record that's going to be on BET. I'm not, at this point, gunning for like, "Oh, I'm gonna kill them in the first week." But as people slowly discover the album they realize it's better than a lot of what they've been listening to all year.

It's how you define yourself. It's not Nirvana or Pearl Jam: it's, 'Do you watch 'Portlandia' or 'Amy Schumer'?' It relates to a specific sense of humor. And, 'Do you know the hidden gems?' Like, if you knew the Pixies in the '80s.

The American indie underground made music for like-minded people who thought for themselves. Thinking for yourself is intrinsically subversive.