Prog Rock Quotes

I'm not sure at all about the current prog rock scene.

We kinda were a radio-rock band. We were still pretty technical, but I think the prog people hated us because we didn't do a bunch of weird time signatures... which are cool at times, but I'm more interested in progressive harmony.

To me, prog-rock is ELP. And for me personally, that stuff is really boring.

Prog rock, with a little good taste, is ok. I tried to bring some of it into this century, I guess.

My experience with playing in odd time signatures was progressive rock and learning King Crimson songs as a kid coming up and maybe learning Pink Floyd, 'Money,' that kind of thing.

I never have met any heroes - except one. The exception is Ian Anderson, flute player extraordinaire, creative musical talent for more than 40 years, and the man most associated with the band Jethro Tull.

Prog didn't really go away. Just took a catnap in the late Seventies. A new generation of fans discovered it, and a whole new array of bands and solo artists took it on into the new millennium.

Those late '60s early '70s bands would take it really far out and get super-weird.

For me, prog rock has always been essentially British. It combines all our great and eccentric genius. We are not hung up on categories, rules and classification. We love people who break the mould, challenge us and make us think differently.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer or King Crimson or Gentle Giant - the worst prog rock references I can come up with. Though I totally loved those groups as a kid.

I went to Salford Tech. They did a two-year performing arts course. I went there singing and dancing - I had a terrible time. I turned up in green dungarees and German power boots. I was into prog rock at the time - Gong and Hawkwind - and I was clumping around.

Let me say it up front: I don't like bad hair or capes. I'm not into witches, warlocks or elves. I would never try to claim prog rock is cool. But I love it. And I know I'm not the only one.

You can't ever really replace Jon Anderson because he's been such a force in the music business.

I was a huge prog rock fan as a kid in high school, and I'm so thankful for that.

There's no doubt that prog rock has an image problem: many musicians hate the label, and too many people associate it with 10-minute drum solos and the weirder bits of JRR Tolkien.

I hated prog rock; to me, it was the ultimate expression of a bloated sense of self-importance and mindless self-indulgence.

I just believed in 1979 that prog rock was finished. I just saw the handwriting on the wall. And I believed that if we continued in that direction, our career would be finished. So I kind of led the band to making 'Cornerstone,' which is an album from my point of view which was not trying to be necessarily softer, but more natural.

It's perhaps easier to say what prog rock isn't than what it is: it's not three-minute pop songs, it's not straightforward rock, metal, blues or jazz, but can have elements of all them and more. It's a form that is on the boundaries of many different forms, that is open to all sorts of influences.

I think that prog rock is the science fiction of music. Science fiction speculates on what the future might be and look like and how we'll get there, and yet there's always a central theme of humanity, or there should be. Progressive rock has the same concept of exploration into the parts of the music world that hasn't been explored.

(Rush are) like the JD Salinger of Canadian Prog Rock

Is punk rock really music, or is it really just an attitude? I get into that discussion with people all of the time. I personally consider be-bop jazz to be punk rock. And prog rock would definitely fall in that category too.

I wanted to create the weirdest show ever made on television - a punky, prog-rock nightmare of lurid colours.

I listened to a lot of King Crimson back in the day.

We did do the whole of the live suite from 'Fly From Here,' and that was very enjoyable to do. In fact, that is actually our longest piece of music, I think, that we'd ever done.