Musical Idols Quotes

I decided early on that I wanted to be Michael Bloomfield, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton - not George Harrison.

My heroes were Eddie Van Halen - especially after Van Halen I, II, III, and IV - Randy Rhoads, Ace Frehley and dudes like that. My brother played drums and we jammed in the garage and started writing our own stuff.

One of my biggest influences of all time would be somebody like Tom Waits. David Bowie is another huge influence. I'm also a big fan of St. Vincent and Leslie Feist.

We idolized the Beatles, except for those of us who idolized the Rolling Stones, who in those days still had many of their original teeth.

Jeff Beck is my idol .. sometimes he finds notes that I just do not have on my guitar. Frank Zappa's another one .. I loved Frank Zappa ... I do think Van Halen reinvented the guitar ... he's an excellent musician, a shrewd guitarist and as a person he's wonderful.

I have always looked up to Adele and Christina Aguilera as singers ever since I was very young, and now my favorite male singer is Hozier.

People like Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Antonio Aguilar, Pedro Fernandez, Vicente Fernandez - these are probably all names that many people don't know, but they are very popular in the music industry. They were people that I grew up listening to and aspiring to be like one day.

Somebody said I sound like an old lady, and I was really insulted by that. I'm trying to sound like Skip James and Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye.

No, I like being a role model because I know how much comfort my musical idols brought me.

I'm not a star. I'll never be a Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley or a Ray Charles. I'm just an imitator, man. I'm doing a very bad imitation on the bass of Jerry Jemmott, Bernard Odum, Jimmy Fielder, Jimmy Blanton, Igor Stravinsky, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, James Brown, Charlie Parker... the cats, man. I'm just backing up the cats.

I definitely take influences from my idols David Bowie and Billy Joel. I've combined them with the Frankie Grande-isms that I've cultivated over singing every night for two shows a week for four years on Broadway.

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band.

I loved Judy Garland growing up, and I also loved Ella Fitzgerald.

Then I went through a big Peggy Lee stage, then I became Annie Ross, then Judy Collins.

I couldn't sing without a guitar. I like the way it feels to sing and be holding a guitar, even if I'm not playing it that much. All my idols that I grew up liking always had a guitar on them, but they didn't play it - Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello. It's like having a partner with you.

It made me sick - my name's Keith Richards. It hardly makes it against Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, does it? On my first guitar I had Boy Blue written - just pathetic. But that was as good as I got at the time.

I would like to work with Paul McCartney in the future. Or Brian Seltzer. But I guess like, like I said - I'm into The Strokes, like Ben Folds, Eliot Smith, the Beatles are my favorite, the Beach Boys, Queen.