When we learned to play in bands, what we were covering was equal part the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead. That would defy the logic that somehow these things don't fit in the same musical well.
I do a cover of a Velvet Underground song, and they were one of the most important bands, for me.
I would be happy to produce groups, like John Cale - he was in the Velvet Underground, and then he went on to produce these bands.
I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk.
Back in the days, the groups and the bands that we listened to were like Earth, Wind and Fire, Santana and Grateful Dead. We don't have a lot of those bands anymore.
I was always heavily interested in underground musical movements, the post-dubstep scene; Mount Kimbie were coming out, and bands like that.
No part of Manhattan these days really has the same vibe I get from a Ramones song or a Velvet Underground song.
As time went on, we formed a number of different bands. We played in rival, neighborhood bands. We learned more songs and we learned how to play Chuck Berry music and we learned Ventures songs.
I don't know if it was a single-blade or one of those straight-edge razors, but I used to play in bands that were, like, show bands and would play different clubs, and, in those days, I would go to the barber twice a week.
When I first got involved in the underground metal scene in '82, '83, there were only about five or six major Death or Black Metal bands around. There were so many other bands that were inspirational, that really helped.
When people are saying "rock is dead," it's making everything worse. I would like reword and say "rock is underground." We're really being alienated from every possible facet. Rock radio doesn't even play rock bands anymore. So, they've pretty much stripped away every outlet for us to reach the fans.
We didn't invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead. We were just in line to see what was going to happen.
The clothes I wear... that doesn't change. I love long dresses. I love velvet. I love high boots. I never change. I love the same eye make-up. I'm not a fad person. I still have everything I had then. That's one part of me... that's where my songs come from. There's a song on the new Fleetwood Mac album [Mirage] that says, 'Going back to the velvet underground/back to the floor that I love,' because I always put my bed on the floor. 'To a room with some lace and paper flowers/ back to the gypsy that I was.'
I heard the Velvet Underground and that changed things when I was like, 15.
Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way--through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all.
The only criterion we used in doing cover material was we wanted to do songs that we wished bands would play when we went out. We were doing Yardbirds and Rolling Stones cover songs-which is not any big deal, but where we were from, all we were getting were Top 40 bands.
You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was.