John Cameron Mitchell Quotes

I got into music around the age of eight years old, and I think the reason why was because I discovered the Spice Girls. I fell in love with them, and it was the first time I ever felt like the music was just directed to me.

Music and fashion and art - they were the things we were willing to die for. 'Is my hair all right? Have you heard this tune?' They're the things that saved us. They're the things that are saving kids on Nuneaton council estates. There's no other way out.

Year after year, we see a new crop of musicians who do their best to look tough in lipstick and makeup. Maybe it's a cry for help, an admission of their strong feminine side, or the realization that they don't look so good any other way. Whatever the reason, makeup is as rock n' roll as a Marshall stack.

When I was growing up, rock & roll helped give me my sense of identity, but I had to search for it.

'Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On' was my anthem as a child. It was about me. I was Baby.

I wanted to emulate music from America - young punks playing rock n' roll is what it was. I read part of Keith Richards' autobiography, and it was totally parallel with me, learning from American records.

When I got the 'Blue Album,' I was 11 years old, 10 years old, and then I convinced my parents to go and get my first drum kit, which was, like, 600 bucks.

I wasn't good in school. I didn't do sports. I sat in the bedroom and listened to records. Because the Beatles did whatever they wanted to, I took that as a kid and said, 'That's what rock is.'

Grunge gave me a sense of identity, and I remember really associating with 'Silverchair,' who were these chilled-out Australian teenagers. The fact that they were teenagers was a big deal for me. It was like, 'Oh, man, you don't have to be a 30-year-old to do this.'

With rock and metal, I think a lot of people connect with the lyrics because they feel like they don't fit in.

When I was very young, it was Guns N' Roses and Metallica. I'd play air guitar on my bed. They've been the thread throughout my life.

Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and The Sex Pistols may come and go, but rebellion remains a key part of the rock n' roll experience. However, that rebellion - the outgrowth of a youthful search for independence and identity - doesn't always take the same form.

Music fills peoples with life. It doesn't have to be a 'happy song.' If you have that one song that relates to you, whether it's a sad song or a gangster song, whatever relates to you the most in that moment, it can literally get you through the day.

I grew up on rock and roll like My Chemical Romance, who were actually genuinely talking about and saying things.

A lot of kids bought guitars and started playing rock'n'roll because of us.

The only thing I ever really wanted was a Strat .. I started playing guitar after seeing Jimi Hendrix on TV the day he died...then I got Deep Purples' Fireball album which was also a big influence .. I have a collection of more than 200 of them that includes Strats from every year since March 1954 - the first month the Strat was made

I'm not here to write a song for you, I'm here to help you write a song for yourself.

I used to feel so bad before I got to the clubhouse, I didn't know what to do. But when I put that ballsuit on, I don't know where I got the spark to save my life.

Classic Van Halen made people want to dance and f**k. Modern Van Halen makes you want to drink milk and drive foreign cars.

Critics and fans use the music of their youth as reference points. For years, people seriously wondered who "the next Beatles" were going to be, and classic rock bands were the de facto yardstick for rock quality.

My older brother was the guitar player in the neighborhood band. My parents were the cool ones that had the basement for rehearsal. Rather than hang with my peers after school, I wanted to just listen to the band. More than that, I wanted to play.

I discovered rock'n'roll. You could go round Europe in a van with your best mates, drinking beer, smoking dope and screwing chicks.

I haven't got many tattoos, but the two that are most important to me are music tattoos. I have a black heart with a lightning bolt down the middle. And the black heart was for Manson and the lightning bolt down the middle was for David Bowie. I have black diamond with circles that keep swirling and swirling, and it's surrounded by sort of crazy diamonds because Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" really inspired me, and everybody's called me Crazy Diamond since I was a teenager, so it was always important to me.