The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring.
It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.
Being on the road has about 2 1/2 hours a day that are really great, and that's when you're onstage. The other 21 1/2 hours are very boring... It becomes like a void, and we chose to fill it with all the wrong things.
I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale.
When you tour, you regain the music and the connection with the audience.
I've been on the road since 1967.
At the end of the day, a playback singer has to depend on live shows as their source of income.
I thrive on being on the road, waking up in a different place every day and having my life revolve around music. When you walk out in front of 300,000 people and pull it off, it validates you.
Apparently I was a Billboard top touring act of 1973, but nobody told me.
When I play in Atlantic City, I perform Tuesdays through Sundays for two weeks, and I have 91-percent attendance. No one else plays six days a week, two shows per night, and does that kind of business.
There was a period of time when I thought I had to be Alice Cooper all the time.
I did a long concert tour in England and Denmark and Sweden, and I also sang for the Soviet people, one of the finest musical audiences in the world.
I'm quite tame as touring musicians go.
I'm not someone who gets to play The O2 and places like that, but that's the kind of rock and roll venue. The popularity of stand-up means that some people are getting to play rock star venues.
I went on tour with Beyonce before. I wouldn't mind doing something with her.
Being on the road is like a campout. I'm the only girl. The guys in my band are like my big brothers. It's definitely an adventure, but it can be a nomadic lifestyle.
I performed six concerts all over the U.S.S.R. during the time of Gorbachev. The entire audience was Russian. There were no Indians. Period. The audience turned out in large numbers and gave standing ovations to all my songs. They knew each song. That was an amazing experience.
In the early 1980s, I got into a war with my management - they just kept on suing me and I lost everything. So I had to go out on tour to make sure the electricity stayed on.
I miss touring. I miss seeing people on the road. I miss that adrenaline rush; there's nothing like it.
I don't really put cars in my videos because I'm always flying or on a tour bus.
To sing with Led Zeppelin has allowed me to offer the best places I could afford to my family and friends!
For me, I feel most at home when I'm playing live.
I was a student at Kent State University in May of 1970. I was also a musician in a regionally popular band called the James Gang. I was still going to class and stuff, but I was in and out because we were playing a lot.
I've been to Philadelphia a lot of times over the years, playing the old Celebrity Room and most of the other clubs around there that don't exist anymore.
Motivation has always been a fascinating factor when considering a touring artist, especially when the years stack up. What keeps one out there year after year?
