Los Angeles Music Scene Quotes

Black Flag was formed in 1977. We first recorded in 1978.

I'm a West Coast ratchet L.A. artist.

L.A. has got to be the poser capital of the world. Around here Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, and Ratt are the heaviest in the world. So if that's heavy we must be molten steel.

I think when I first started out making music here in Los Angeles, a lot of people were really curious about my ethnicity, and you know, whatever questions they had, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

I came to L.A. in 1970, and my desire and my training was to be a studio musician, which I had read about in my senior year in high school.

When I got to LA and was with the James Gang, I got the opportunity to write a lot, to play in front of large audiences, make some money.

I just started writing for my own amusement and occasionally singing in little clubs around Los Angeles. Then I wrote 'The Rose,' and through a series of divine things that I had no control over and had no idea were going to happen, it got in the movie, and that changed everything.

I was never into hanging out on the Sunset Strip. When it came to Guns N' Roses and the scene that was going on then, that was something we pretty much hated. That was what we had to scratch and claw through, and as soon as we got established enough to leave, we never went back.

I have been performing as long as I can remember, so I built my craft. People think I was discovered after the first show I played once I landed in L.A., and it just happened instantly - overnight. The truth is, I was performing wherever I could for five years.

I've grown up with jazz - the Joe Hendersons, Oliver Nelsons, Miles Davis and stuff - but I was also listening to, like, Slipknot, Korn, and Rage Against the Machine. There was all of that weaved - interweaved - in there, and being from L.A., you tend to know your musical history.

No, I'm sure that there's a lot of L.A. bands out there.

Ah, the Wrecking Crew! They played on everything that came out of L.A. Oh, that was a good band. You really enjoyed going to work. You played for everyone; it didn't matter what it was.

More than 30 years ago, in Washington, D.C., I secured a copy of a single by a Los Angeles band called The Bags. The two-song 7-inch, released on Dangerhouse, had a girl on the cover who looked right at you with huge eyes. The songs, 'Survive' and 'Babylonian Gorgon,' were great and made many of my mix tapes.

I was playing a singer-songwriter, so I started writing, and I started going up to different places around Los Angeles and reading poetry of my own, which terrified me, but I had to do it. I picked up a guitar and started learning guitar.

In 1977, I had Paul Rivera hotrod six Fender Deluxes for me. At that time, a lot of studio guys in L.A. were using those - not so much live guys but studio guys. They had terrific tone and great technique, and I was like, 'Well, I like having terrific tone even though I don't have any technique.'

I love Ozomatli, this L.A. band that makes great coffee. They are half American, half Mexican, their coffee's great, and they're very good friends.

I started singing on the radio in Los Angeles. I sang blues, but I would tend toward country blues.

I like to record records in Los Angeles. It's less distracting than New York, where I was based.

With L.A. it's like, yeah, there's Death Row and whatever. But I always wanted to know what those artists were sampling. It's how I fell in love with music.