Rock History Quotes

It is quite moving to hold a piece of Mars in your hands and to reflect on its incredible interplanetary journey, and the science that gives confidence as to the origin of this unusual rock.

A lot of your rock people, even early, like Elvis, have always come from the South.

Everyone knows about The Who, but I didn't. I knew the popular songs like "I Can See For Miles." So that was the first song I worked on because it was the catchiest and easiest.

Rock music will never die. We all know that.

There was a thing during those times in the '80s where it was like Sex Pistols then Nirvana and nothing in between.

I always say, 'Hey, I'm in Metallica, but I wasn't on the Black Album.'

Everything I ever learned about rock, I learned from Led Zeppelin.

Definitely Muddy Waters has been a prime influence for anybody who's ever done anything rock 'n' roll.

There are people who think the film 'This Is Spinal Tap' is simply a very funny 'mockumentary.' Well, with Yes, we lived it. Take the hilarious scene in the film in which the bass player is trapped in a giant pod - that actually happened to Alan one night.

When I hit 11 so did the careers of Dylan and the Stones. A year later it was the Who and the Kinks.

I started out just as Elvis was going into the army, Jerry Lee Lewis married his 14-year-old cousin, and Little Richard became a priest.

Johnny Guitar... just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together. I would hear him sing every night.

I believe that the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin are two of the greatest rock bands ever!

Ginger Baker was never my favorite, but he was part of the group Cream that opened the door to what we did. They were the first band to really get into improvisation. They were an absolute necessity to what came later.

I think the first three Rickenbacker basses were imported around 1964. Pete Quaife, the bassist for The Kinks, bought one. Then John Entwistle from The Who bought one. As for the third one, I asked the manager of the store if I could get an employee discount. He said I could, and so I picked up that one.

I would say seeing the original Yardbirds with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page at the old Fillmore was a pretty powerful influence on me.

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.

Having loved the Stones all the time I was growing up, I wasn't about to see them go and split up. It got very close to it in the 80s, when Mick thought that Keith hated him and vice versa.

I think the '60s was a great time for music, especially for rock and roll. It was the era of The Beatles, of The Stones, and then later on The Who and Zeppelin. But at one point in the '70s, it just kind of became... mellow.

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'.

I hope fans will go back and listen to the Beatles and the Beach Boys or Led Zeppelin, or put on 'Tommy' and let them experience like I did that moment when 'Pinball Wizard' comes on.

I'm a long way from Ike Turner.

I think it is safe to say, as a huge fan of music, that between 1967 and 1972 was the renaissance of rock music. That's when all the forces combined together-the talent that was available and the freedom for the artists. The industry hadn't become so gigantic.

What's amazing is how rock n' roll lasted. It started losing its commercial power in the late 1990s. But think of swing, which we think of as this big music before rock n' roll. It only lasted five years in total. So, rock going 50 years is amazing, because young people want new things.

Deep Purple is a damn good band and we've made a niche in rock 'n' roll history. Maybe not a huge one but enough to be very proud of.