Top 1200 Big Band Quotes & Sayings

This guy kept telling us that rock was the big thing, everyone's talking about the big thing, our band was the big thing. So he made us change our name to The Big Thing. Can you believe that?!

When you're in a band that's so big when you're young, you kind of lose your identity a little bit. You just become part of the band. I just needed to get away from it.

Rush is one of the common denominators in our band as far as a band that everybody loves and grew up with and was a big influence.

Without doubt, the foremost band for decades has been the One O'Clock Lab Band at the University of North Texas. Through its many incarnations and under various leaders, they have demonstrated the highest qualities of musicianship imaginable, plus a willingness to balance their big band tradition with creative exploration. Astounding ensemble work, insightful interpretations of the arrangements, imaginative writing, and above all, a loving attention to musicality . . . these people play beautifully.

For starters, I should just tell you that The Band was always my favorite band from the first moment that I heard the first note of "The Weight" on WNEW radio. It was when I was eight years old and Music From Big Pink came out. They were my favorite band always. They had a profound influence on me and on my becoming a musician.

The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.

Reading interviews with other people, I see them say, 'All I want is for our band to be massive', but it was never an ambition of ours to be in a band that's this big. That's so far from how my mind works that I find it puzzling. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious, but we're not.

I never thought of us as a punk band, a metal band, or a new wave band. Just as a band band.

Revamp is a band that would deserve the hundred-percent devotion a band needs, and at this moment, I don't see any future for another band next to a band such as Nightwish, and with the ambition to become a mother, I will have to let Revamp go, which is a very sad decision.

Since the big band started I'm just always swamped with movies and things. It certainly pays the bills and it's very satisfying, because I get to write all these big charts and all this crazy music.

Josh is the guy in the band who's just so friendly and super, wanting to walk up to you and say, 'Hey, I'm Josh. I drum in this band, and I'm a big fan of you, and I really appreciate what you do.' Josh has all these great friends in the industry now.

I've got the big name, but I've always wanted to be in a band, one of a band.

Once again, in the fine tradition of North Texas Lab Bands, this is truly a superb band. Under the artful leadership of Neil Slater, these great musicians have managed to combine small group "openness" with the swinging precision of a classic big band. Very enjoyable!

I feel more confident about what we're doing as a band and what we're trying to do as a band and the way we're looking at it as a band.

My faith plays a big part in who I am: a Christian guy playing pop-rock music. I'm in a pop-rock band, not a Christian band.

Any accolades that anybody puts toward this band really makes me feel good, because I have devoted such a big part of my life to this band, making it what I want it to be.

Joining another big time rock band was the last thing I was looking for, but as the tour went on, I really dug playing to a lot of people, the band sounded great, and just being out there again, got me over my depression and so I decided to hop on board.

It was a big deal for us to be on Ozzfest, especially as one of the main headliners and being the band that wasn't announced: the mystery band. We'd never played the second stage at Ozzfest, and all of a sudden we're on the main stage.

I was asked to be in Elton John's band, Joni Mitchell's band, and Miles Davis' band. I couldn't do it.

It was by listening to Goodman's band, that I began to notice the guitarist Charlie Christian, who was one of the first musicians to play solos in a big band set-up.

I like having a big band because it gives you more options. They can always not play and I can do the quiet stuff, but when we want to do the big arrangements, we can.

What's cool about indie rock is that one band can do effectively the same thing as another band, and one band nails it, and the other one doesn't. I like that elusiveness.

I was in a rock band; I was my own folk singer; I was in a death metal band for a very short time; I was in a cover band, a jazz band, a blues band. I was in a gospel choir.

I enjoy playing with a big band occasionally, but it's too restricting; you really don't have a chance to stretch out and do what you want to do. Getting that thing of relating to a large band is great experience; I relate much better, though, if it's a small band.

The Big Band Era is my era. People say, 'Where did you get your style from?' I did the Big Band Era on guitar. That's the best way I could explain it.

A lot of the music is the kind of thing I grew up with, listening to it with my parents. So there was a band in London called the BBC Big Band, and I sang with them. And I had never done a big band before, and it was just so fantastic and I had such a good time...so that's how it all came about

You know, with bands like Kiss back out on the road and Aerosmith coming out, we are going to be a band like that, in the sense that it's a big rock band.

The Animals were their own worst enemy. The Animals were a band that couldn't live up to their name. I was the singer in the band and as long as I was enjoying myself I would keep on working with the band. But it got to be rather nasty once the big money showed up - things started to turn toxic.

I think what's cool about about going on a co-headline tour is everyone's bringing a huge show, so it's not like opening band, opening band, then here's the big show. It's like two big shows.

I got my first set of drums when I was around 3. I went from band to marching band to Latin jazz band - it's like riding a bike.

The Animals were their own worst enemy. The Animals were a band that couldnt live up to their name. I was the singer in the band and as long as I was enjoying myself I would keep on working with the band. But it got to be rather nasty once the big money showed up - things started to turn toxic.

With my little band, I did everything they did with a big band. I made the blues jump.

Power is the thing that holds a band of perception together, and a band of perception is life for those who perceive in that band. If the band of perception were to go away, they would not exist.

When the band were really big and we had massive hits, I was always stressed-out and insecure. I thought I wanted the band to be really popular, but when that happened, there was so much pressure to keep it going.

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.

When I was a very young kid, the first music that really turned me on was a new wave of British heavy metal - big, dumb rock music. There was a band called Diamond Head - they were basically the band that inspired Metallica. But I also liked bands like Saxon and Iron Maiden.

There's always a Van der Graaf audience that wants to hear the band's sound. And totally fair enough. Why not? It's a band. You like the band, you like 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.

What we've noticed is that people latch onto our music, and are very, very supportive of it, even almost defensive about it. Quite fanatical, some fans, aren't they? Just like they are in England, once they get a hold of "their" band, they don't want their band to get too big anyways.

There are bands that make parodies of being in a band, like Spinal Tap. That's a big influence. They're making fun of a rock band, but they write lyrics that are better than real rock bands.

Porcupine Tree is a band, and it's not up to me where the band goes - it's between the manager, our agent, and the band as a whole.

I said that the only way I could have a band that would work in the format of my show is if the band were crap. So if I have a band they'd have to really suck.

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.

Their eagerness for the big-band music and their ability to grasp the essence of it made me realize that today's generation has not been properly exposed to the big-band sound.

I was in bands as a singer-guitarist-songwriter until 1980-81. So, there's a bunch of stuff. A lot of the stuff is hard to come by-stuff by the Special Interest Group and the Zobo Funn Band. The Zobo Funn Band was a big Northeast cult band. We had about a billion skirmishes with the big rock industry.

We became a band that was kind of a big band, kind of a band that quite uncool people listen to, people a lot like me. I've realized that's a much more beautiful fate than the plan I had.

In a way, as much as we love to be a big, loud rock band, the acoustic album was a lot easier to make than the rock records. I think because it was brand new territory for the band.

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.

I played a lot of music all throughout my life, actually, but in high school I was in marching band and all the bands. So, I was big into music, I was big into drawing and sculpture, and all these different things.

It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band. Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.

We don't necessarily want to do a biopic. Mostly because it's like, 'Big deal. Band gets together and gets big. Then the excesses come and they fall apart.'

There are a few artists that I'm really into. I mean, I'm a big Nick Cave fan. And there's a band from Australia called Big Heavy Stuff that's one of my favorite bands ever.

We're a rock band. We're proud of it. We're not an art band, a noise band, or an extreme band.

The band? No way! There ain't no band. The band is not 'the band' right now. It's just three guys.

People don't seem to care about convictions any more. When I was a teenager, the deal was that, y'know, you had a band that you were really loyal towards, almost to a fault, and you stayed really loyal to that band. That was the whole thing, that was such a big deal.

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.

It is really refreshing to hear a big band that has the ability to execute ensemble passages with swing and precision while retaining a "small group" feel during the solo sections. This kind of "tight, loose" approach is seldom heard in big bands, whether they are professional or not. Now, all the band needs is to hit the road and take the music around the world!

When I was a kid, my friends and I formed a band, Trombone Shorty's Brass Band. When I was six, I was a bandleader for my brother's band.

When I got my band in 1983, I knew what I had to do. If I'm going to have a big band, they're going to have to sound equally as good as what I'm used to hearing.

It's a big deal when you play in a rock band and you conquer Japan. You know, it's a big deal.