Tommy Bolin Quotes

Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music.

I went from wanting to be a Beatle to becoming a 'widdly-widdly' guitar player.

Whenever I hear my playing, I can't detach from my influences: there's my Jeff Beck, there's the Clapton bit, the Eric Johnson bit, the Birelli Lagrene bit, the Billy Gibbons.

As a guitar player, you never stop learning, never stop honing your skills.

Just based on the primary adage of the necessity breeding innovation, it was just like 'Well, what makes me the guitar player that I am?' and I feel like I listen to so much different music, and I'm a student of so many genres of music, and I feel like it's fun to apply those things and anything super applicable to any type of music.

I play acoustic when I need to play acoustic, and I say I'm probably a better acoustic player than I am electric.

It's much better to play the guitar a half hour a day, every day, than not practice for a week and then jam for five hours one day.

I really truly love all styles of music. A lot of people say that, but the first station they turn to when they get in the car is a rock station. I don't always do that. I really enjoy everything. But, of course, I'm a rock shred guitar player first.

I think that the more that you play and the more instruments you play and the better you get at them, then you will be better off for it as a guitarist.

We're all competent in different ways, we've just got to find a way to push ourselves up more.

I don't really see huge barriers between any styles of music. My definition of music is "organizing sound and silence into emotion," and that's a very broad definition.

I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.

These days I don't look to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks, although I've got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I'm sure that I'm still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well......I can't play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and can't do it. I don't know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more.

I was so used to doing old blues licks with the first three fingers. When I started using my pinky and finding more spread things, that's when I started getting my own style.

Sometimes I'll listen to a little old Van Halen, or some Beatles, Zeppelin stuff, classical music... I like a lot of different things.

There's such a wealth of arts and styles within the guitar... flamenco, jazz, rock, blues... you name it, it's there. In the early days my dream was to fuse all those styles. Now composing has become just as important.

The good thing about playing the guitar: You can take on different kinds of music. I'm always doing something different from the last thing I did because I have the shortest attention span on earth.

From our earliest days in Liverpool, George and I on the one hand and Paul on the other had different musical tastes. Paul preferred 'pop type' music and we preferred what is now called 'underground'. This may have led to arguments, particularly between Paul and George, but the contrast in tastes, I'm sure, did more good than harm, musically speaking, and contributed to our success.

Each period had required me to be a slightly different person, and that was exhausting. I wondered if school had always felt this way and whether it was like this for everone.

I'm really open to different kinds of music, I don't like to limit myself to pop.

I was born swinging and clapped my hands in church as a little boy, but I've grown up and I like to do things other than just swing. But blues can do more than just swing.

The way is in training.

There's so much that can be done on the guitar. And that's what is so good about the guitar - everyone can really enjoy themselves on it and have a good time, which is what it's all about.

I'm not one of these guys to do my solo stuff one night and Black Sabbath the next. I can't do that, you know. It's too much to handle.

There's so much music out there, and so many different styles that I've been influenced by, so each album reflects some of that knowledge or influence that I've had.