I doubt very much if The Beatles would have happened if it was not for Elvis.
Rock 'n' roll is meant to entertain. Hippie folk singers are supposed to be singing about leftist views, but I don't think rock 'n' roll was ever that way. I don't remember the early rock 'n' rollers ever expressing any political views.
Rock n' roll doesn't change. All the idiocies and pretension continue.
Hip hop is doing the new rock thing; there are no rules. They can do anything, really. And that's inspiring.
Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn't their parents'. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.
Elvis Presley was the first and the best. He is my favorite of all time.
Rock and roll doesn't necessarily mean a band. It doesn't mean a singer, and it doesn't mean a lyric, really. It's that question of trying to be immortal.
My theory is that hip-hop is the most advanced version of civilisation on earth, and we are here to usher the rest of humanity into the Age of Aquarius.
The biggest influence? I've had several at different times - but the biggest for me was Bob Dylan, who was a guy that came along when I was twelve or thirteen and just changed all the rules about what it meant to write songs.
There was a thing during those times in the '80s where it was like Sex Pistols then Nirvana and nothing in between.
Music has to change. I don't want to stay the same forever.
Some people just don't want to see change, but thankfully there are a lot of people more optimistic for something new in music, even with the bigger picture like with Obama getting elected.
The '50s was the golden age of music all over the world for some crazy, 'X-File'-like reason I can't quite understand.
We came along at a time when people were really focused on music. We were part of the second generation of bands after all of those great 60's bands when rock was still in its' infancy.
I invented rock & roll. Jimi Hendrix was my guitar player. James Brown was my vocalist.
Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution - the 60's comes from it.
No matter what happens in the future, rock and roll will save the world.
Rock and roll and swing never quite mixed. Rock and roll came in and just blew everything out of the water. Big bands were dead.
It's wonderful to look back and think you were part of a force that shaped modern music and influenced the public in so many ways. However, that's all in the past.
They have all different names for music. I think the music I'm going to change the style with is going to be really, really big-years and years after I'm gone.
You need the past as a guideline. The history of music is a good basis, but to escape that stuff, that tortuous rulebook, you have to learn it first. It's kind of like religion - once you've written the Bible, that's it, move on.
I remember when in the early days of rock'n'roll, when everything sounded totally different, all amazing and blah blah blah blah blah. Now you can play me one second of any record from that time, and I'll say "1959" or "1961." I can hear precisely. It's like it has a huge date stamp on it.
You can't love music without loving the Beatles.
Elvis Presley is the main founding father of rock music. He was an unheralded genius behind a new music that changed western civilization for all time.
Rock 'n' roll is ridiculous. It's absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we're wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.
