Musician Lifestyle Quotes

I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale.

I don't think successful musicians were really put on this planet in order to have a great time, pat themselves on the back and say, 'Oh, what a clever boy I am!' I think that, like most artists, we were put on the planet to suffer just a little. And we do.

I thrive on being on the road, waking up in a different place every day and having my life revolve around music. When you walk out in front of 300,000 people and pull it off, it validates you.

I love doing shows. I love rocking shows. I love playing instruments. I love singing. If I can find a way to do that and feed my family, then I'm a happy man.

The first record we made in three days. We literally stayed up for three days making the first album. It was crazy, crazy, crazy for us to do that. We couldn't believe anyone would give us a record deal. I look back on that record fondly but with just the slightest bit of a cringe.

As long as all four of my limbs keep moving and I can still sit up straight and play hard rock and roll for 2 and a half to 3 hours, I'm gonna keep doing it, and I'm gonna do it the way I do it.

If I'm not on tour, then I'm sometimes laying down four or five records at a time.

Once you hit 40, being in a band - a committee voting constantly on what you're going to be doing next month - it's more of a challenge. And when you have a kid as well.

For me, I feel most at home when I'm playing live.

Back when I was in high school, I came out onstage with my guitar and had four guys playing behind me. We were just playing a dance, but I was standing in front of an audience rocking out. I'm still rocking out like when I was a kid. I haven't changed.

I'm not in it for my health. I'm a musician and I wanna live the way I do.

I traveled with the band for five years with Parkinson's.

I always have felt that most people don't have the first idea about what musicians, in the traditional sense - I don't mean in the modern media fake way, but traditionally - what they went through, what their lives were like.

You know what I think you get scared of more - especially me, after touring for so long and being in bands for so long - you start to associate certain behavior with the music. It's like people associate having a cigarette with having a cup of coffee, or lunch.

I think a lot of it is that we used to tour so much that we never really had time to write songs.

I like to play small clubs.

Growing up, I played in different bands and did a lot of self-booked touring and traveling around, and my sister was driving us on tour, and we're playing for nobody and literally begging my friends that I went to high school with to buy tickets to our shows.

The ability for a woman to orally satisfy somebody in a rock band, that's important to a rock 'n' roll musician.

I really loved touring with my band, but it felt like we would spend a lot of time playing in empty rooms - empty clubs. We had some good successes, but it's so physically hard to load up a van and drive all day.

Nine Inch Nails is like building an army to go conquer. We build it, then we play, and we have to play so much to validate building it, financially. It leads to getting burn-out because a tour that would be fun if it lasted three weeks has to last 15 weeks.

I think my biggest achievement is still going out on the road and wanting to make music on the road. It doesn't matter to me that I am still travelling around because I just love everything about it, I love the lifestyle, and I love being on stage.

I've dreamed of being on the road, traveling and touring, for as long as I've been into doing music. It's what I live for. I just wanna be Willie Nelson.

I don't really collect guitars like some musicians do.

I worry about my voice 24/7 when I'm on tour. It's like a pitcher and his arm. It's constantly the thing that my whole life revolves around.

Here I am, on the road again. There I am, up on the stage. Here I go, playing star again. There I go, turn the page.