Riff Based Quotes

Songs are out there - they're waiting to be grabbed. I start with a phrase, musical and lyrical, words like 'I don't think so' and a nice riff. It rolls from there.

There's a lot of craft in songwriting. The divine inspiration is when the idea comes. It may be a riff. It may be a word. It may be a phrase. It may be a title. Sometimes, in the best of both worlds, that divine inspiration extends through the whole song. I've literally sat down and written a song from beginning to end, almost complete lyrics and everything without ever stopping...in two minutes. The chorus of 'She's Gone' was like that.

You would find in a lot of Zep stuff that the riff was the juggernaut that careered through and I worked the lyrics around this.

Generally my songs are just some riffs slung together as an excuse for a guitar solo.

My influences were the riff-based blues coming from Chicago in the Fifties - Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Billy Boy Arnold records.

I want to do some different kind of songs, but say I want to do riffs, but I don't come up with any riffs that I really think are great. Then I can't do a riff album. I'm more of a song, melody person.

When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.

Motley never once sat down and said, 'Well, the music scene's changing. We need to make this record a little darker or heavier musically or lyrically.' It was just four guys sitting in a room like a bunch of 16-year-olds in a garage and jamming on riffs.