Adam Ant (Adam & the Ants)

• Who wants politics in music? I find politics the single most uninspiring, unemotional, insensitive activity on this planet.

Andy McClusky (Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark)

• I wake up some nights and I think, Orchestral maneuvers in the Dark? What a stupid name! Why did we pick that one?

Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses)

• I don't even know my own phone number.
• I'm pro-heterosexual. I can't get enough of women. I have sex as often as possible...It's not easy to be in a one-on-one relationship if the other person is not going to allow me to be with other people.

B

Billy Idol

• Christ was a punk rocker.
• The biggest misconception people have about me is that I'm stupid.

Bjork (Sugarcubes)

• All we had ever heard about record company people is that they were vampires and criminals and they killed Elvis Presley.

Bono (U2)

• ...We would try to play other people's songs, but we just couldn't play them. We played them so badly, we decided to write our own songs.
• People should realize, we are just jerks like them.
• We were so awkward musically speaking, when we got together as a band. We couldn't really play our instruments or anything. But that didn't stop us from playing them.
• I think that at U2 concerts it seems that the audience almost applaud themselves...When they hear songs froma few years ago, their own memories are woven into them.

Boy George

• With the punk thing, everyone was making impractical attacks on being rich or having money, ya know, but they all wanted to be rich.
• Comparing Madonna with Marilyn Monroe is like comparing Rachel Welch to the back of a bus.

C

Cyndi Lauper

• People used to throw rocks at me because of my clothes. Now they wanna know where I buy them.
• (About Cape Cod.)
  Some people call it The Cape, but I call it The Cod.

D

David Bowie

• I think the first song I ever wrote...was called "Can't Help Thinking About Me." That's an illuminating little piece, isn't it?
• I'm an instant star, just add water and stir.
• I've always been a big fan of diversification, eh? At one period I had the whole lot going. I was a Buddhist mime songwriter and a part-time sax player.
• Rock 'n' roll is quite fun and everything, but I'm only using it as a medium.

Debbie Gibson

• I'm very driven, even though I don't drive.

Dr. Robert (Blow Monkeys)

E

Elvis Costello

• Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.
• (on the choosing on his stage name, Elvis Costello)I hadn't picked a name at all. Jake (his manager) just picked it. It was just a marketing scheme. "How are we gonna separate you from Johnny this and Johhny that? He said, "We'll call you Elvis." I thought he was completely out of his mind.

F

G

Grace Jones

• At a certain point, a man wants to own you, and no man will ever own me.

George Michael

• The whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend it's not.

H

I

Iggy Pop

• You can call me Jimmy or you can call me Iggy. My parents called me James Osterberg, Jr. Iggy was a nickname hung on me that I didn't particularly like.

J

Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys)

• Don't hate the media. Become the media.
  
  Johnny Rotten aka John Lydon (Sex Pistols, P.I.L.)

• I don't listen to music. I hate all music.

K

L

M

Madonna

• I won't be happy until I'm as famous as God.
• I'm ambitious. But if I weren't as talented as I am ambitious, I would be a gross monstrosity.
• Be strong, believe in freedom and in God, love yourself, understand your sexuality, have a sense of humor, masturbate, don't judge people by their religion, color or sexual habits, love life and your family.
• I've written my best things when I'm upset. What's the point of sitting down and notating your happiness?
• Boy George makes me sick.

Martin Fry (ABC)

• I wanted a name that would put us first in the phone directory, or second if you count ABBA...

Michael Hutchence

• People really lead flat lives. They need some sort of peak. I like to be that peak.

Mike Peters (The Alarm)

• We were called The Toilets originally - we were flushed with success.

N

Nikki Sixx

• (on the use of umlauts over the O and U of Motley Crue)
  We didn't think about its proper use. We just wanted something to be weird, and the umlaut is very visual. It's German and strong, and that Nazi Germany mentality - "the future belongs to us" - intrigued me.

O

P

Paul Leary (Butthole Surfers)

• We started out as the Dave Clark Five in San Antonio, Texas. We had this deal about wanting to change the name of the band every show we did, so then we became The Dick Gas Five , and then we were Nine Foot Worm Makes Own Food. Then we started playing in Austin as that. Then we were the Vodka Family Winstons and we were Abe Lincoln's Bush. Then we were The Inalienable Right To Eat Fred Astaire's Asshole, and then the next show were were just plain The Right To Eat Fred Astaire's Asshole.
• (on naming their band, the Butthole Surfers) Oh no, no regrets at all. My mom even says it now. It took her about ten years, but I've heard her say it two or three times now.

Paul Westerberg (The Replacements)

• A rock 'n' roll band needs to be able to get under people's skin. You should be able to clear the room at the drop of a hat.

Peter Gabriel

• Artists everywhere steal mercilessly all the time and I think this is healthy.

Poly Styrene (X-Ray Specs)

• I don't know how --- I just did it. It was just that time when anybody could form a band.

Prince

• Find out who you are and what you stand for, and learn the difference between right and wrong; be able to weight things.
• When one finds himself, one finds God. You find God, and you find yourself.
• I try not to repeat myself. It's the hardest thing in the world to do --- there are only so many notes one human being can master.

Q

R

Robin Hitchcock

• ...Two of the guys (members of The Soft Boys) were half-Jewish, so we could have called ourselves The Psychedelic Jews but it's the sort of thing that offends Jews and goyim alike. You're just gonna piss everyone off. That's part of the appeal, really. Like calling an album Queer For Jesus, y'know. It's very tempting, if you want to deal with the torrent of misunderstanding that follows.

S

Simon LeBon (Duran Duran)

• We want to be the band to dance to when the bomb drops.

Sinead O'Connor

• What pisses me off is when I've got seven or eight record company fat pig men sitting there telling me what to wear.

Sting (The Police)

• When you're as rich as I am, you don't have to be political.
• Rock 'n' roll is a bit like Las Vegas; guys get dressed up in their sisters' clothes pretending to be angry, but not really angry about anything.
• I don't give a fuck about rock 'n' roll.
• I do my best work when I'm in pain and turmoil.

Stiv Bators (Dead Boys, The Lords of the New Church)

• I've been known to forget to un-handcuff a few girls.

T

Tom Waits

• Achievement is for the senators and scholars. At one time I had ambitions, but I had them removed by a doctor in Buffalo.
• On my gravestone, I want it to say, "I told you I was sick."

U

V

Viv Albertine (The Slits)

• (on the name of their band) Taxi drivers, our mothers, feminists, men - no one likes it. It was obscene to everybody.