Henry Rollins Quotes

Once you establish a foundation of knowing what the greatest recording artists of all time were... Wouldn't you want your kids to know this stuff?

I really don't feel the need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because, at the end of the day, it's just somebody's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have a particular process, and they're welcome to do it however they want to do it.

The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest.

I had this image before Boy George, before the Beatles, before the Rolling Stones.

Whitney Houston and Ella Fitzgerald are my musical mothers. I learned everything I know about true R&B, pop and jazz singing from these stunning performers and unparalleled musicians.

Without people like Dylan and the Beatles and people like Paul Simon, I think rock n' roll would have died out like Dixieland jazz.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is marketing. You've got a bunch of faceless people in a back room who trademark a name that sounds very official. Well, if you had thought of it first, you would have been the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke - the fact that Madonna is in before Rush and Kiss. Those two bands have influenced so many groups and people other than in metal.

The muse of music isn't just from Greek mythology, but living in people like the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Anita Baker, Aretha Franklin.

But Patsy, she was a great, great girl. And Brenda Lee is a wonderful person, and her mama Grace. I've known those folks for years and years and years.

I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.

I never thought a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland or anywhere else was a good idea.

I saw footage of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley just hanging out together in Memphis when they were young guys getting started at Sun, listening to records together. That was beautiful to me.

At the 'L.A. Times,' I always wanted to write about artists I thought were meaningful. So I interviewed Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Eminem, White Stripes. And I could understand how almost everybody I interviewed had a sense of artistry.

Most of our great influences were male rockers, like Led Zeppelin.

I think rock 'n' roll, in a way, has been dead for a long time.

People like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding - I do not put myself in that category.

The Beatles are the classical music of rock n' roll. And rock n' roll is far more widespread than classical will ever be.

It'd be really great to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame mature. It's a good facility there in Cleveland. I like the museum a lot.

I don't think there should be a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, period.

In 1952, Muddy cut the song 'Rollin' Stone.' It was a nationwide success, and the song echoes down through rock n' roll history. Bob Dylan cut a tribute by the same name, an English band decided to call themselves the Rolling Stones, and the magazine that first embraced music as a serious cultural phenomenon was itself called 'Rolling Stone.'

I think my legacy should be that when I started in show business, there wasn't no such thing as rock n' roll. When I started with 'Tutti Frutti,' that's when rock really started rocking.

My sound comes from my inspiration, which is people like Aretha and Jay Z and Kanye, as well as everyone from the Whitneys and Mariahs to Destiny's Child and Usher. They all inspired me growing up.

Chuck Berry told me if it wasn't for Louis Jordan, he wouldn't have probably ever even got into music. That Louis Jordan changed everything and made him want to become a musician.

In 1974, when I started working with the material that became 'Horses,' a lot of our great voices had died. We'd lost Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and people like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.