Rodney Miles - 365 Surprising and Inspirational Rock Star Quotes

SURPRISING

AND INSPIRATIONAL

ROCK

STAR

QUOTES

by ALISON TAYLOR

and RODNEY MILES

www.BiminiBooks.com

365 SURPRISING AND INSPIRATIONAL ROCK STAR QUOTES

by ALISON TAYLOR and RODNEY MILES

First Edition

Published 2014 by Bimini Books

www.BiminiBooks.com

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment and education only. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. All images are free to use or share, even commercially, according to Google at the time of publication unless otherwise noted. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author(s) and everyone else involved.

Copyright 2014 Bimini Books

Cover Design by Todd Simpson

Dedication

For Brian Wilson, Jerry Garcia, Page McConnell, and Geddy Lee, who spoke to my soul and inspired me to become the music-lover I am today.

Alison

To Elvis Presley, the first rock star I discovered in this life, and to Gene Simmons, who apparently wanted to be one and reached out and grabbed it. How many Halloweens did I dress as thee?

Rodney

Now, Before You Get Pissed...

WAIT!

Let us start with a big, loud confession:

There are a LOT of stars and quotes we have missed! Its inevitable. Were sorry. There are so many, and if you love music like we do, youas I wouldprobably feel slighted in some way that your favorite ROCK STAR might not be included.

So go ahead, get a bit muffed, but work with uswe have put heart and soul into this collection and we hope that will shine through, and hey, we had to stop someplace!

Another thing: verification. We didnt seek out all of these rock stars and push for written verification that they said these things, and we dont see that as necessary. Were this an academic thesis, of course we would have, but not in this case. Take for example, Gandhi:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

That famous axiom rings well across the worldin fact it should ring even louderbut its disputed that he actually ever said that. In fact, if we could ask Bapu (which means Father) if he recalls ever saying that, there would at least be a chance he would not confirm or deny. Heck, Rodney swears his wife tells him things he said a few days ago that he hotly disputes!

So we are quite happy, for our purposes here, to have used, over this last year of developing the book, online sources of quotes that we find reliable enough. We dont claim to have found new, exclusive things these stars have said, nor did we include any song lyrics, but we do claim to have assembled these quotes in a novel, interesting, hopefully fascinating way, a way that hopefully makes them and the culmination of them new and enlightening or at least entertaining for you, dear reader!

So I hope youll agree this collection is not complete. Its not perfect, but its a damn good start, and I really hope youll send me your suggestions, and even demands, for the next 365! In fact, we have a similar tome with CEO/business quotes started! Sign up for announcements at www.BiminiBooks.com [shameless desire to connect with you!]

And thank you for buying this book! We sincerely hope it brings many hours, days, years of enjoyment and reflection. Read it however you likea little at a time, one quote per day for an entire year, or even all at once. This collection belongs to you now. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed assembling it.

What is a quote? A quote (cognate with quota) is a cut, a section, a slice of someone elses orange. You suck the slice, toss the rind, skate away. Part of what you enjoy in a documentary technique is the sense of banditry. To loot someone elses life or sentences and make off with a point of view, which is called objective because you can make anything into an object by treating it this way, is exciting and dangerous.

Anne Carson, Decreation

Contents

A Note From Alison

Invisible airwaves crackle with life

Bright antennae bristle with the energy

Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength

Bearing a gift beyond pricealmost free

Rush, The Spirit of Radio

I BECAME A FAN at a very early age. The Beach Boys were my first love, followed by the cast of Kids Incorporated , followed by just about anyone who could weave poetry into a melody. No genre was off-limits. When I was a little kiddo, it was not uncommon to find me either singing and dancing in front of the TV (with a rockin hairbrush mic of course) or trapped in my room with headphones blaring at an unsafe volume. I also sometimes recruited my friends to stage phenomenal lip-synching contests or to create mock music videos. Performance art was a way of life in my world, and most of my friends very willingly played along.

As I grew up, music is the one thing that remained constant. My tastes may have changed and refined over time (although I still adore The Beach Boys), but I have never stopped seeking out new music to listen to and share. Self-expression has never come easily to me, so I feel such relief whenever I find a song that mirrors how Im feeling. After all, if someone has written a song about it, Im obviously not the only one suffering through that particular trial.

For a long time, music was a fairly private thing for me. I either enjoyed it entirely alone or in the presence of one or two close friends. All hell broke loose, though, when my mom won tickets in a radio contest to an Oasis concert when I was 15. I couldnt say that I was an Oasis fan at the time, but I liked their music well enough. I was allowed to go to the show with a family friend, and I can honestly say that I felt my life changing during the two hours of that show.

Something about the sheer volume of the music combined with the lights and the energy of the crowd just spoke directly to my soul. It was as if a hole was being filled that I didnt even know was there. I wasnt allowed to stay for the whole show (stupid 10pm curfew that seemed totally unreasonable at the time), and I didnt even get to hear my favorite song of theirs. It didnt matter. The bug bit me, and things have never been the same.

Over the years, Ive latched on to quite a few different bands and the sheer joy of seeing them play live. When I was in high school, my parents didnt mind my fascination with concerts because they saw it as a very teenager-y thing. They even allowed me to take extended road trips with friends to see showssometimes for entire weekends. I was a good kid: I never did drugs (or anything else illegal) while at any of the shows. I simply got high on the experience and felt more and more fulfilled with every show. My parents truly believed the whole thing was a phase and that I would gradually grow out of it as I was faced with becoming adult and dealing with real-world responsibilities.

Well, spoiler alert: I never lost my unyielding love for music. In fact, its stronger than ever. I spent a decade of my adult life battling a nasty illness that at its best was inconvenient and at its worst, completely disabling. People would always ask how I coped during the worst of it. The answer? A set of headphones and Rushs Permanent Waves . Or Led Zeppelins IV . Or Phishs Farmhouse . Or Rage Against the Machines Evil Empire . Or a homespun mix that somehow seamlessly transitioned from the Grateful Dead to David Bowie to Blink-182 to Taylor Swift. Music allows me to bypass the clutter and calamity in my head and instead have a direct conversation with my heart. It stirs up emotions that I could never imagine with my mind alone. Hope, pain, fear, joy: all are part of the musical experience, and all are part of the healing process.