Rockspeak 101: Rockers “Speak” Out About “Rock,” “Rocking,” “Speaking” and “Rockspeaking”… and more!
[Rolling Stone Charlie Watts speaks (!) to reporters while the band’s longtime manager/enforcer, Peter Grant, looks on]
The world of Rock—or Rockworld—is filled with rockers. Some are still destined for future rock greatness, some have passed on to Rock Heaven, where you know they’ve got a helluva band which unfortunately nobody ever gets to hear because clearly Heaven is in outer space which is an airless void where no sound can exist, some have already shown their rock credentials and have moved into other areas such as photography, fine cooking, and public speaking. Some don’t rock that hard, but there they are.
Which brings us to the subject of Rockspeak. Rockers not only rock, they’re also known to open their mouths and say things with words. In a word: they speak. From these words we are able to glean a great many things: rock wisdom, rock humor, rock recipes, rock advice, rock geography, and yes even rock rock!
So herewith below are collected some of the greatest, worst, funniest, saddest, and zaniest rock quotations to ever be rock uttered by Rockdom’s finest rock people (or persons). Remember while you’re reading, rockspeak is more than just speech from a rock—it’s rock itself, spoken!
“I got into Wham! at first, but at the end of the day that band is a minor talent.”
— Keith Richard(s) on Wham! and their talent
“Favorite Beatle? I dunno, really. I never much got into that group.”
— Paul Simon on his favorite Beatle and not having one because of his disinterest in the Beatles
“To me Dylan was always pretty much just a singing haircut. No soul.”— Jon Bon Jovi of Bon Jovi on Bob Dylan
“I can name every state capital.”
— Paul Stanley on his third greatest talent
“When I was a young boy, growing up in West Filderforth County, I remember meeting a strange, wizened, old gypsy by the name of Hamrick the Medium-Height. He was a little bit taller than me, but not by much. He spoke of a great many things, but what I remember most was him explaining to me that little girls were brought here by Jesus every Halloween and you had to feed them candy every day or else they’d wither and die just like the tiny roses he kept in his dusty pocket. He would then pull out a handful of said “tiny roses” but you quickly realized they were just cheese crumbs and dead insects. Then he’d start making a weird noise and moving his leg all funny so you’d slowly back away. Eventually he was elected mayor.”
— Marty Balin on recording “Crown of Creation”
“Tallahassee is the capital of Florida, for instance.”
— Paul Stanley on the capital of Florida
“You know who I never got that into? They Might Be Giants. Just seemed like novelty music to me. But I dunno, people like them I guess. It’s just not for me.”
— George Harrison’s last words
“Do you guys remember Enuff Z’nuff? That was a band with some heart and soul, what I like to call chutzpah!”
—Bruce Willis to a bank teller
“I checked out the Lutherans and the Catholics, dug Judaism for a bit, read up on Buddha and that Hinduism stuff — hell, man, I even scoped out Scientology. But the only thing that ever felt really right to me? The Unitarians.”
— Prince Paul on religion
“Me and some friends I met in my yoga class got together and wrote a campaign song for Bill Clinton back in ‘92. It was called ‘Let’s All Vote for Bill Clinton for President’ and was sort of a peppy blues number. We were all pretty sad when he ended up using that Fleetwood Mac song. Which I admit is a great song. Just a little disappointing, y’know?”
— Neil Young on writing a campaign song for Bill Clinton
“And the capital of Michigan is Lansing. A lot of people think Detroit.”
— Paul Stanley on Detroit not being the capitol of Michigan
“Mama made the best oat fry in the whole tri-state area and folks’d come for miles to scoop it up and carry it away in their fishin’ flagons. One time Mr. Frudd got his leg stuck in the big ole lard churner, took ‘em three months to pull him out.”
— Kirk Hammett on how his hair got like that
“People forget: I was the first one to start saying, ‘It is what it is.’ Originally, I was talking about a coffee grinder.”
— RZA on modern vernacular
“Stamp collecting is for losers, man. Honestly, get a real hobby. Learn to play a Hawaiian instrument or tie a bow tie or something for criminy”s sakes.”
— Tiny Tim on the dark legacy of Richard Nixon
“One that used to always trip me up was Montana. But eventually I got the hang of it: Helena.”
— Paul Stanley on remembering the capital of Montana
“The thing about our band name that always disturbed me—and you may know that for several years I was pretty, um, upset about things—was that we simply weren’t ‘boys,’ strictly speaking. We were men. Eventually several of us grew beards just to prove it, and I mean I was hardly a boy. I was freaking enormous!”
—Brian Wilson on Jan & Dean
“Listen it’s no secret I owe everything to Wang Chung. That guy was basically god to me, and I just copied his every divine move.”
—Wang Chung on Lacan
“Would it have killed you to put a woman in this feature?”
—Nancy Wilson on sexism in rock
“That’s a trick question. North Carolina doesn’t have a capital. Right?”
— Paul Stanley on being incorrect in this case about the capital of North Carolina
