Arena Rock Quotes

I love Eighties rock.

I grew up listening to classic rock - the Kinks, Genesis, The Who, Pink Floyd.

As big as Metallica are, they're still not like a pop act. As big as they are, they're still not U2 or Lady Gaga. It's still underground.

I am really into '70s music, like The Rolling Stones, The Doors and what not.

I listen to a lot of Pink Floyd, the Doors, Elton John, Sabbath, Metallica, GN'R, Megadeth - just classic rock, classic metal stuff.

Punk-rock gave music back to people. For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16 and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that. Me and [Minor Threat and Fugazi vocalist] Ian MacKaye would go to these concerts, and it was fun.

My first concert - maybe it was 1979 - was a blur. I'm not sure whether it was Blue Oyster Cult/Cheap Trick/Pat Travers at San Jose Civic Auditorium or The Police/The Knack/Robert Johnson at Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium.

If you're an American kid, you can't help but be influenced by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones because they're always on the radio.

I figure it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy; if I make a successful arena rock record, I'll wind up playing arenas! I wouldn't mind being back in that kind of venue because of the kinds of things you can do with production. You can make your shows more interesting, which would be fun to do.

I was such a big Kiss and Van Halen fan, Yngwie Malmsteen, Racer X... all that stuff. I loved everybody.

I like Journey, Bad Company, Soundgarden and Aerosmith.

When I was a teenager in the '70s, I was really into those great bands like Led Zeppelin and Queen and Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper.

American rock was, and still is to some extent, a closed shop. REO Speedwagon, Toto, Boston, Foreigner all those bands, and I wouldn't be able to tell which from which.

So when I got to be about 13 or 14, I started listening - even though my parents music was way cool - to contemporary hard rock at that time, which was Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Ted Nugent and all that, and that's just where I came from.

I love heavy metal, Metallica. I'm into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.

Our music is an answer to the early Seventies when artsy people with big egos would do vocal harmonies and play long guitar solos and get called geniuses.

I have a fascination for well-produced '70s and '80s rock with a lot of harmonies. AOR bands like Journey, Jefferson Starship, Toto, Kansas, Boston.

My mum listened to stuff like Alanis Morissette and Tori Amos, but she also listened to a lot of '80s stuff like Heart. I still quite like Heart.

I love power ballads and the earnest lack of irony and emotion that exists in '80s music, along with synth guitars, of course.

Some of the newer bands I like include Queensryche and Marillion, and I was glad when Yes reformed. Also, Kingdom Come; I was laughing when I first heard it and going 'This is outrageous,' but it's a really album. I went to see them play and enjoyed it.

Where I lived, on Long Island, you had the radio stations that always played Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and AC/DC and all that. I grew up on all that stuff.

Well, what I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies.

People that love this form of music have loved it from way back - Sabbath, Zeppelin, the early days.

I was a closet Journey fan when I was growing up.