Instead of just being a band that's constantly replacing members, we figured we'd done all of the stuff we wanted to do. It seemed to make sense to see if we could live our lives without the band.
When you are in a band for a number of years you loose your identity in a way. You become a part of that band and then all of a sudden you are not part of that band. You are still the band without the other two members.
Hopefully people can look at our band and see that we're a heavy rock band. We're definitely not a metal band, but we're a band that focuses on meaningful lyrics and melody.
A weird thing about Gossip that I've always said: 'If I weren't in this band, I would never listen to it.' But I would go see it. It's a band you would go see that you don't necessarily listen to. We've always wanted to do a live album because personally, I think we're a way better band live than on record.
So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we're kind of an international phenomenon.
You don't accidentally turn into a big band. Not even Nirvana accidentally turned into a big band. They toured - they wanted to become a big band. They didn't necessarily want to become that big of a band, but they still wanted to make a really good record and wanted to come out and tour.
Your band members? Your band members don't want to be tied to a machine. They want to be playing. That's what the Beatles did. And the Beatles' stuff is timeless. That's what I would suggest. Just get back to sweating, playing hard, hammering, and having a blast.
I never thought of us as a punk band, a metal band, or a new wave band. Just as a band band.
Phish is such a good band; they just make stuff up as a jam band.
We do what we want to do. We write songs. We try not to repeat ourselves too much. We have our own sound and our own way of doing things. Up until now it has always been enjoyable. None of the members have ever got to the point where they don't want to be involved in it ... It's not entirely possible for me to stand back and look at the Rolling Stones because being a part of it you can't. I wish that I could just sit in the audience for one night and see the show. Everyone in the band has said that at some point. But then you wouldn't be seeing the whole band. And that's the problem with that.
But I always wanted to do a theatrical stuff. But when you're in a metal band of course you're limited because five people in the band, um, you've got no keyboards... you're limited. And I wanted... to go over-the-top, you know. Literally. I wanted to make an album that people would either hate or love.
The guys in my band are good friends on and off the stage. The band members that I have now is probably the best band that I have ever had.
When I'm representing my music live I think of it very much in a rock band sense. When I first started doing festivals in the 90s there really weren't other DJs playing the stages I was playing. So I felt I was being afforded an opportunity to kind of make a statement about what DJ music can be live. In the 90s, if you were a DJ you were in the dance tent, and you were playing house music and techno music. There was no such thing as a DJ - a solo DJ - on a stage, after a rock band and before another rock band: that just didn't happen.
Trying to make it and get people to respect your band, being a cool band-all of that stuff-I think we've arrived at a place where we have kids and everything is in perspective and it doesn't matter.
I really wanted to, but I just didn't understand how people became comedians. I kind of thought it was something you were born into. And so I wanted to be a veterinarian or an architect. I wanted to be in a band, and for some reason I could understand how you could be in a band because I had guitars and all my friends played music. Comedy was a secret want, but it wasn't anything I pursued.
Kurt Cobain was Nirvana. He named the band, hired its members, played guitar, wrote the songs, fronted the band onstage and in interviews, and took responsibility for the band's business decisions.
We never set out to be this punk rock band that's going to stay small and tour in a van forever. We wanted to take our band to a level where we could do everything we want to do.