NOTABLE QUOTABLE QUOTES FROM SOME OF ROCKNROLL'S FINEST CHARACTERS
(and Blaze Bayley)

“Gene lives about five minutes from me – I can see his ego from my house!”
Paul Stanley of Kiss

“Between us and Bon Jovi we fucking built that company. We built their penthouse sushi bar,
wherever it may be, and they just treated us like shit. We can either roll over like little dandelions
or we can stand up and punch them in the bollocks. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Joe Elliott explains why Def Leppard are re-recording their hits instead of kow-towing to Universal Records

“I Federal Expressed a diaper full of shit to my record company, Warner Brothers.”
Ministry’s Al Jourgensen

“Over the years, people have made a lot of claims about what Ken Hensley was like to work with –
and I can only endorse what they’ve said.”
Also a member of AC/DC and The Firm, drummer Chris Slade uses tact and diplomacy
whilst recalling his spell with Uriah Heep

“The music that I did with Metallica is awe-inspiring. It’s maybe the best thing done by anyone, ever.
It could create another planetary system. I’m not joking, and I’m not being egotistical.”
Lou Reed

“We’re from Scarborough and we’ve come down like Vikings, raping and pillaging… people don’t like that.”
‘Little’ Jimmy Dickinson of Little Angels, getting a trifle carried away in 1993

“Whoever’s singing that should get a fucking day job.”
Ozzy Osbourne hears Megadeth’s version of ‘Paranoid’ in 1994

“I’ve found from my relationship with my good lady that the one way to shut her up is to introduce a bit of horn.
I’m no marriage guidance counsellor, but it’s worked once or twice for me.”
Who else but… David ‘Mr PC’ Coverdale?!

“The guy’s not [even] a great singer and he acts like he’s the coolest, hottest guy in the world. To me, he looks gay.”
Sammy Hagar on David Lee Roth

“The same thing that made Peru famous [was what] made a loser out of UFO.”
Pete Way, speaking in 1983

“I look back and go: ‘Wow, that was crazy’. It was pretty disgraceful.
I spent more time shooting heroin than I did being the best man.”
Nikki Sixx on the day that Tommy Lee married Heather Locklear

“My best childhood memory was meeting The Wombles. I was six years old and it blew my mind!”
Shane Embury, Napalm Death

“In the last few years I’ve re-discovered Kate Bush. She’s pretty talented and, er… she’s got great tits!”
Metallica’s James Hetfield, 1993

“I never owned the first Van Halen record. I couldn’t put it on to save my soul. I never understood it.”
Chris Robinson, The Black Crowes

“I went and saw that movie about The Doors and I was absolutely disgusted. I walked out.
They’d made a hero out of an egotistical moronic drunken drug addict.”
Ozzy ‘None Of The Above’ Osbourne, 1992

“Steve [Harris] and myself always used to clash. He wanted to fire me after the first month of the ‘Number Of The Beast’ tour.”
Bruce Dickinson, still a solo artist back in 1993, on his sometimes frosty relationship with ’Arry

“In the 1980s I used to cure athlete’s foot by pouring cocaine on my toes. They cut the stuff with so much foot powder back then,
it was the best treatment. The only problem was the price [of] around $3000 a toe.”
Ozzy Osbourne

“Enid [Williams] didn’t drink, except for one time. She was staggering around backstage with an imprint of a toilet seat
on her forehead having passed out.”
Girlschool’s Denise Dufort recalls the night her teetotal bass player had a can of Special Brew

“I wouldn’t send him cat food if he was starving.”
Claws out! David Coverdale on Robert Plant, 1994

“I can’t see myself getting married, but if I wanted children I’d just go into Harrods and buy one.
Buy two and you get the nanny thrown in.”
Freddie Mercury

“Is there a word for something that’s beneath shit?”
Asked to describe grunge music in 1994, Joey DeMaio is found wanting

“No butt plug, no matter how big, could facilitate the gigantic anus of Courtney Love.”
Marilyn Manson, back in the year 2000

“It's the stupidest thing he’s ever done. He’s a sacred American institution of rock ‘n’ roll and he just threw it all out the window. Stomped on it and set it on fire. Whoever’s advising him, we should bring back the guillotine.”
Kid Rock on Steven Tyler’s decision to become an American Idol judge

“I remember going to Tony [Iommi]: ‘Fucking hell, you want to see the thing I’ve got in bed [with me].
It looks like the winner of the 3.30 from Kelso!’”
Ozzy Osbourne recalls a US groupie experience

“I lost my virginity to an Alsatian. It pinned me up against a wall and shot its muck all over my front. It put me off sex for a bit.”
Terrorvision drummer Shutty, speaking in 1999

“I started to be really proud of the fact that I was gay, even though I wasn’t.”
Kurt ‘Not Mixed Up At All’ Cobain

“I am the best Keith Moon-type drummer in the world.”
Keith Moon

“I think that pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything that ever happened, and vice versa.”
Frank Zappa

“When you get married it should be forever. Even though I did get married once and it was annulled.”
Courtney Love

“It sickens me to watch everybody fawning over Sharon Osbourne. This is the most evil, shittiest woman I’ve ever met in my life.
She would fucking have you killed if it was to her advantage. She’s just... it’s just... if people really knew.”
Vince Neil

“W.A.S.P. are not a heavy metal band, just a Punch And Judy show decorated with chains.”
Slayer’s Kerry King

“Merv came over, got drunk and threw up in the toilet, so we knew he was the man for the job.”
Steve Overland tells Kerrang! about the day that Mr Goldsworthy joined FM

“We spelled our name with a ‘Y’ rather than an ‘I’, as we didn’t want people to mistake us for ‘Stripper’.”
Robert Sweet

“If you put a Mars bar in one of Glenn Hughes’ hands and a bass in the other, he’ll choose the Mars bar.”
Gary Moore

“If you see Thin Lizzy being reformed, it will be a thing of desperation.”
Quoted in 1985, the man who should know – Mr Philip Parris Lynott

“I was at the BBC and accidentally walked into the wrong studio. Basil Brush was sat at his desk.
I’m stood there not knowing what to do and he says in that Basil Brush voice, ‘I say, it’s Rick Wakeman’.
I mumbled, ‘Very nice to meet you’. And he just says, ‘Right. We’re in the middle of rehearsal and ever so behind,
so if you could just fuck off, there’s a good chap’. I walked out in a daze, bumped into Barry Norman
and could only tell him, ‘Basil Brush just told me to fuck off!’”
Rick Wakeman

“I don’t know the guy, but he’s one of the worst guitar players I’ve ever heard in my life.
I’ve never heard a solo from that guy that was any good… This guy is out of tune, and his vibration... what is it?
Vibrato. Oh my God. It sounds like a beginner.”
Winger/Whitesnake’s Reb Beach on Kirk Hammett, 2010

“What can I say? We are saving heavy metal from extinction. Most male metal fans can’t get a fucking girlfriend.”
Cackling with laughter, Zoltan Bathory explains why Five Finger Death Punch waived admission
for the first 100 ladies per night on a recent US tour

“I compromised my ideals with this new album. I look at it – sonically, artistically and even photographically –
and I’d like to throw it into the fireplace.”
Speaking in 1999, Peter Steele does the big sell on Type O Negative’s ‘World Coming Down’ album

“The only chick I could fall in love with is Kate Bush. I love her, totally.
I cried at her gig at the Sunderland Empire a few years ago, then walked home 30 miles with my head in the clouds.”
Cronos from Venom, back in 1985

“Paul Rodgers’ hair looks a bit unnatural. He must use the same guy as Elton john, for fuck’s sake.
I’m not having a pop, I’m just amazed that people haven’t said, ‘How can this be?’”
Talking in Fireworks magazine, Brian Howe on his predecessor – and successor! – in Bad Company

“Come on, then. Speak. Ask your questions.”
Ginger Baker begins a 2010 interview with Classic Rock’s Max Bell

“That was the biggest joke in history. I [played with them because I] needed the money, [but] they didn’t have any.
Their music was fucking appalling. Atrocious. I hated it all. Thank Christ I wasn’t with them very long.”
We’re sure Hawkwind speak very highly of you, too, Mr Baker

“[With BBM] more gigs were cancelled than played. And they were awful. Unlike Cream, everything with Gary Moore was contrived.
Every solo he played was the same. When Gary blew his ears they took him to a doctor.
I said, ‘Why don’t you take him to a fucking psychiatrist ’cos that’s what he needs?’”
Anyone else you’d like to insult, Ginger?

“Chas Chandler asked if Jimi [Hendrix] could sit in with Cream. I didn’t know who he was; just some geezer.
When he starts going down on his knees, playing with his teeth, I wasn’t impressed at all.”
Yet more vitriol from the same GB interview…

“I hate the Stones and always have done. Mick Jagger is a musical moron. Keith Moon was a good drummer with The Who,
I suppose, when he tried to play like me. Mitch Mitchell was a journeyman, hopeless.
John Bonham, Ringo Starr, Charlie Watts… they’re a three or four [out of ten].”
So, Ginger, how do you rate yourself?

“I’m a golden ten.”
Thank you Mr Baker, and goodnight…

“I’ve been sitting her admiring my crotch for the last ten minutes.”
W.A.S.P.’s Blackie Lawless

“Until about two years ago I was a struggling male model for Mothercare, still learning my craft…”
In a 1984 interview, Brian Howe explains what he did before joining Ted Nugent’s band

“Donald Trump is a huge fan of Gene Simmons. Mostly he’s jealous of my hair which is much cooler than his.
Everyone thinks we both wear wigs, but we don’t. They’re just jealous.”
Kiss motormouth Gene Simmons in the March 2010 issue of Classic Rock

“No disrespect because Lars [Ulrich] is great and he’s a very nice guy, but he needs to spend a week at my house.
We need to sit down and play. I could show him — ‘No, Lars, like this!’…
‘Let’s chill, let’s relax, have some coffee and let’s play!’ Hahahahaha!”
Slayer’s Dave Lombardo offers to host a Metalli-drum clinic, November 2009

“I was secretly pining [over] getting up there and playing with them again. [But] what song would I play?
And how could I even stand it? I like playing with guys who can keep time.”
Dave Mustaine’s best-ever Metallica putdown, surely?

“The scale of our music is like the size of a porn star’s penis – it’s all about the length and the girth.
The bigger it is, the more you can put into it.”
Mike Portnoy, Dream Theater

“As far as Dave [Lombardo] goes, I don’t care whether he lives or dies.”
Slayer’s Kerry King in a September 1995 interview with Metal Hammer

“I'd never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work.”
Trent Renzor

“Around 1988 we went to see Lita Ford at the Marquee and when Jon Bon Jovi came on for the encore everyone went nuts.
And I thought, ‘We’re better than this wanker!’”
Guitarist Luke Morley on the night that Thunder were born

“Slash either should not have been in Guns [N’ Roses] to begin with or should have left after ‘Lies’.
Personally I consider him a cancer… better removed, avoided.”
W Axl Rose pulls no punches with regard to his former guitarist, February 2009

“Fuck off, Led Zeppelin, you’re crap. You’ve always been crap, and you’ll never be anything else.
Cream is ten times the band that Led Zeppelin is.”
Jack Bruce speaks his mind at the Classic Rock Awards, November 2008

“You’re gonna compare Eric Clapton with that fucking Jimmy Page? Would you really compare that?
No… Eric’s good and Jimmy’s crap. And with that I rest my case.”
Jack Bruce, still in a bit of a strop

“The only decent guy – the one good guy in that band is dead.”
In a radio interview the following day, Bruce stands by his convictions

“After I was advised to plead guilty [to charges of exposing himself in a Golden Egg restaurant in London’s Leicester Square],
I got off with a fine. The next day I decided to see what would happen if I did it for real.
So I took off all my clothes and jogged from Highgate to Camden Lock. No one took any notice until eventually
I was stopped by a policeman who, when he saw I was a bit drunk, lent me a fiver to get a taxi home.”
Ex-Rainbow singer Graham Bonnet in 1982, months before being ejected from the Michael Schenker Group
for his notorious onstage ‘willy-waving incident’

“Glenn Hughes is still copying Stevie Wonder to this day. I can’t call him a bona fide member of Deep Purple.”
Ian Gillan on The Voice Of Rock

“I’ve never listened to any of Purple Mk II’s records. What are they called? ‘Burn’ and ‘Strongbow’, is it?
I’ve got no interest in them.”
Ian Gillan again

“So I'm in the shower washing me hair, then I feel this stinging pain and hear this sudden plop.
And I see this lump of flesh going down the plug-hole. Fucking ‘ell, my nose has fallen off!”
Status Quo’s Francis Rossi rues nostril-related cocaine damage

“I was fat and self-conscious. I was a turd onstage, just a useless turd.”
Justin Hawkins on his last days with The Darkness. No arguing from me…

“Is this Billy Ocean? Are they black? Are they males or females?”
Dave Mustaine of Megadeth reviews FM’s ‘Frozen Heart’ in the pages of Metal Hammer

“I went into rehab a few times and every time I’d check out Dave [Ellefson] would be waiting outside in his car,
with a CD with heroin and coke on top.”
Dave Mustaine, speaking in 1992

“We have groupies, sure we do. Jesus Christ had groupies. He had thousands of people following Him.
I prefer to call them friends than groupies, but it’s a sign that you’re a real rock ‘n’ roll band.
I just hope that the girls we meet out there are able to benefit from the one we speak about.”
Stryper’s Robert Sweet, in 1986

“I’ve tasted success. It’s a cross between strawberry milkshake and roast beef.”
Gary Barden

“I don’t care if someone wants to get fucked up and party, you should at least be able to play. He did half of ‘Unskinny Bop’
without the guitar plugged in. That was it for me. I walked offstage and drove away. I haven’t spoken to him since.”
Bret Michaels recalls the night in 1991 that CC DeVille was sacked from Poison

“We want a team player, not some hired hand who’ll make one album, get themselves a reputation and then split.”
Michaels before Poison hired Richie Kotzen – for one album!

“The second album will be a lot better. We’ll have two songs on it.”
A fairly rash prediction from Zodiac Mindwarp

“I run this band like The Mafia. We don’t talk about The Family outside The Family”
Jon ‘The Godfather’ Bon Jovi in a 1990 interview with RAW magazine

“I punched the shit out of Sebastian [Bach], decked him right on his fat little ass. I knocked him out and I’d do it again.
He bad-mouthed me on my own stage, and you don’t fucking do that when you’re playing with my gear
and even his shoes were mine.”
JBJ in the same interview.

“Look, I’m a 22-year-old Metallica freak on speed. I’m psychotic. I can drink four bottles of whiskey before I go onstage.
Jon is a 31-year-old Bruce Springsteen fan, a businessman with a fax machine.
He gets pissed on one drink. Who do you think is gonna win a fight?”
Bach disputes the outcome of the aforementioned scrap

“I’ve never had any money and I still don’t. Rock and roll should be about people coming together as one,
not worrying how to how to turn a $69 million fortune into $71 million.”
Seb makes his feelings on JBJ very clear indeed

“David Coverdale has had to make certain cosmetic changes to crack America – ‘cosmetic’ being the operative word.”
Gary Moore

“The great thing about Obituary is that we’re heavier than a bag of donkey’s balls.”
That band’s drummer Don Tardy

“It's like the old joke about the circus employee whose is job was to walk behind the elephants and clean up [their droppings].
He keeps on complaining until somebody finally says, ‘Just stop’, to which he replies, ‘What? And give up showbusiness?!’”
Meat Loaf’s less than ecstatic attitude towards performing live

“What is that, a condom? I haven’t used one of those since I was four.”
Heartfelt nostalgia from David Coverdale as an inflated johnny is thrown onto Wembley Arena’s stage in June 2008

“My life is part humour, part roses, part thorns. I'll come off the stage at Texas Stadium [and] I’m a rock god.
Then, an hour and a half later, I'm throwing a football and waiting for a cheeseburger from a truck stop alongside a freeway.
That is the balance in life.”
Poison’s Bret Michaels disappears up his own rectum

“They are the most pathetic attempt at rock ‘n’ roll I’ve ever heard”.
Yngwie Malmsteen on Iron Maiden

“Other bands wanted to wreck hotel rooms; Roxy Music wanted to redecorate them.”
Bryan Ferry

"I always thought that Pink Floyd were a band for people who don't like music or rock 'n' roll."
Jack Bruce

"[It should be] thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again."
Roger Waters on the Floyd's 'Atom Heart Mother' suite, from 1970

"Sometimes. Usually. But not much."
David Gilmour when asked in 1968 whether Pink Floyd took drugs onstage

"I raised the guys from Classic Rock magazine; they used to be crawling around in the back lounge [of our tourbus], getting blowjobs."
White Lion's Mike Tramp - um, he's lying... honest!

"What Kiss is doing right now reminds me of like what some great fighters did when they come out of retirement,
when they should have just rolled up the towel [and quit]. That's the way it seems to me now. It's getting embarrassing."
Ace Frehley says what everyone else is thinking

"[We are] part Chippendales, part rock band."
Vivian Campbell on Def Leppard's image.

"People ask how I learned to play bass [the way I do]. With a face like mine, you learn to do a lot of things with one hand."
Peter Steele of Type O Negative

"Metal is dead and I am done with it."
Rob Halford, speaking in 1996

"I recorded my 'Electric' album [1999] at their studio Lartington Hall in County Durham. One day the guys were playing this horrible, horrible music. I asked, 'What the hell's this? Is something wrong with the studio?' They said, ‘No, it's Venom.
It’s meant to sound like that'. It was absolutely fucking horrible, so I made them turn it off."
Paul Rodgers recalls the day he first heard Venom

"You've unleashed the fucking fury."
Yngwie Malmsteen famously threatens a fellow airline passenger after she spills a glass of water on him

"Gene's a prat. He's just a silly man in a silly wig. He's just a prat. What more is there to say about him?
He's his own worst enemy by being in the public eye."
Sharon Osbourne, who obviously has no knowledge of pots or kettles...

"Earnestness is our business and this is the revolution."
Pretentious? Ian Astbury of The Cult?! Never!

"Our tour will be a gathering place for desperate souls. People who've been disappointed by watered-down, mediocre rock 'n' roll.
A lot of rock bands are like little kids playing with big-boy toys - we're playing by big-boy rules.
This tour is for people who need meat in their sandwich."
Astbury once again, still hell-bent on making Pseuds' Corner

"What about all you wankers back there? Make some noise. You sound like a herd of syphilitic pussies."
Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe gently introduces himself to Heaven And Hell's audience in Birmingham, 2007

"We don't mind getting laughed at. We're in good company - all the great composers were laughed at, misunderstood, ridiculed..."
Joey DeMaio of Manowar in 1994

"Going to England used to be like dying, being reborn and going to Valhalla, but the British lost their minds.
They betrayed the cause of heavy metal by going grunge several years ago. Let's just hope they come to their senses."
DeMaio in the same interview.

"Geffen Records are so excited to have Manowar on their label. They are, indeed, very fortunate."
'Modesty' is Joey's middle name

"Tommy Thayer used to be in a Kiss tribute band - and he still is!"
Ace Frehley on the successor that wears his stage make-up

"Jimmy Bain couldn't mix cement. A lot of heroin was being taken, that's why it's a crap album."
Brian Robertson on 'Stand Your Ground', Wild Horses' 1981 swansong

"If I could have my own chicken coop in the studio, my own world to live in, I could play a lot better."
Ex-GN'R guitarist Buckethead - and we wonder why we're **still** waiting for the 'Chinsese Democracy' album

"[UFO bassist] Pete Way gave me a cassette he'd made of Free. It blew me away from the opening notes.
I was writing songs for my first solo album at the time, and it was like I had to stop the car, get out,
set fire to the car, and get a new car..."
Joe Bonamassa on the day he discovered the real meaning of the blues

"We will continue until the spandex explodes."
Twisted Sister's Dee Snider

"Hopefully I'll die onstage like Tommy Cooper. I always thought that he went out really well - to the sound of laughter.
I am going to hell, though. That's where all the pool tables are."
Lemmy Kilmister

"I'm more concerned about W Axl Rose's facelifts than his hair. Seriously, he looks like a candle that's starting to melt".
Brian Fair, Shadows Fall

"No, I can't play the guitar like [classical master Andrés] Segovia,
but the flipside of that is that Segovia could probably never have played like me."
Was Kurt Cobain **really** being serious about the above in 1994?

"We're more like [late-'60s kids TV show] The Banana Splits than the [glam-metal] 'dudes' of Sunset Strip." Jay Pepper of Tigertailz       Tigertailz, pictured yesterday

"Ronnie James Dio is one of the vilest people in the industry."
Ex-Dio/current Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell

"I hope Vivian Campbell fucking dies. He's a fucking asshole. He called me the most despicable human being that ever lived.
I thought I gave him a chance and made him somebody. And now he's playing with Def fucking who?
There's a fucking rock band for you to fucking have diarrhea with."
Ronnie bites back #1

"Let me go on record as saying here's a man who smells like chicken soup.
I've smelled better Spaniards at gigs in Pamplona than Vivian Campbell."
Ronnie bites back #2

"A French magazine printed my obituary. How did I die? I dunno, it was in French."
Lemmy Kilmister

"Can you imagine any 14-year-old girl screaming at us in ecstasy?"
Magnum's Bob Catley... and no, we can only comprehend them doing that on ecstasy!

"Mae West whispered to me, 'Why don't you come on back to my trailer?' I said: 'Because you're 86 years old and I'm not even sure
if you're a woman or not'. But if I hadn't have been married I would've gone. Definitely. Just for the experience."
Alice Cooper

"I met Elvis Presley in Las Vegas in 1974. The place was bristling with guns. Elvis asked me to hold a gun
and started demonstrating how to kick [it] out of someone's hand. I'm standing there with a loaded .38,
aiming it at Elvis [and] part of me's going, 'Shoot him! Shoot him!' Ha-ha!"
Alice Cooper once again

"I still use it, now and again. If Percy isn't pointing at the pulchritude then he needs a bit of a push. What's wrong with that?"
Lemmy on Viagra

"I won't watch it because I don't want to think of Metallica like fragile fucking old men that can't have a cocktail because
they're afraid of what they'll become. Fuck that!"
Kerry King from Slayer's view on the Some Kind Of Monster movie

"Oh listen, the reason we did that movie was to piss Kerry King off.
If he hated Some Kind Of Monster, that's the only stamp of approval that I need."
The right to reply goes to Lars Ulrich

"Warner Brothers Records know [all] about my bodily functions. I sent them cum. I signed my record contract in piss.
I Fed-Exed a diaper full of shit to them from Paris."
Ministry's Al Jourgensen

"I'm the only man who's fighting to save this planet, whilst living on another."
Ulp! Could it be possible that Jon Anderson, the environmentally-conscious Yes vocalist, has a sense of humour after all?!

"Ritchie [Blackmore] is a giant amongst guitar players, I don't think anyone would dispute that. But he's an intellectual dwarf."
Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, October 1993

"One of these days I'm going to attack Ian Gillan in a back alley. He's bigger than me, and probably a better fighter,
so I'm gonna do it with a few friends of mine - probably Swedish. We'll beat him up, but he won't know it's me."
Blackmore responds

"Study law and buy a gun."
Noel Redding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's advice when asked how to forge a career in the music business

"Very good question... now all we need is a very good answer. I don't know."
Phil Mogg when, in 1985, a writer asked him if new UFO fans expected the band to sound like the Scorpions or Iron Maiden

"Maiden consistently sell 80 to 100,000 albums in Japan. Metallica continue to be enormous. Bruce Springsteen is massive.
But AC/DC don't [even] exist over here. Forget it."
Bruce Dickinson on the vagaries of the Oriental music market

"If you want to stop the spread of AIDS around the world, give it to Z Records to distribute."
Ex-Tyketto/Vaughn singer Danny Vaughn

"I may be three years older than Jim Morrison, but I'm three years younger than Jesus. I'm just waiting to be crucified."
If self-obsession were to be made a capital offence, HIM's Ville Vallo would certainly be a marked man

"When Nirvana played unplugged it was truly horrible. They were adequate rock musicians, [but] the format left them floundering."
Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull

"Anybody attending this tour will go to Valhalla."
Manowar's Eric Adams, 2007

"It's verging on ridiculous. Al was in the band before electricity, if I remember."
KK Downing on Al Atkins' insistence upon billing himself as Judas Priest's former singer

"I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow [cocaine].
My dad wouldn't have cared. It went down pretty well and I'm still alive."
Keith Richards takes parental bonding to new levels

"How many of you communicated with the dead recently? Come on London, you have a great history as renowned necromancers.
I find it easy to communicate to the dead because they seem to listen, unlike the living."
Celtic Frost bassist Martin Eric Ain introduces 'Necromantical Screams' at London's Koko, March 2007

"The main personality difference between myself and Ritchie [Blackmore] was that I was terrific and he was a twat."
Deep Purple's Ian Gillan turns psycho-analyst

"It was pretty obvious, really. Ritchie must have been suffering from pre-minstrel tension."
Ian Paice's on Blackmore's final exit from Purple, back in 1993

"There's nobody like us at the moment. There's Alice Cooper and Kiss, but we're much better than thsoe bands."
Lordi guitar player Amen shoots his mouth off

"Well, good. When Lordi are working in the shoe store next year they can tell everybody that.
Bravado's great, but what separates the champs from the chumps is what you achieve, not what you believe."
Paul Stanley responds witheringly to the above

"Ozzy Osbourne is a moron. He couldn't carry a tune around in a suitcase.
Ozzy, you'll never be welcome here again and nobody needs you."
Ronnie James Dio hits the press trail for the 'Mob Rules' album in 1981

"Bless Ozzy. He's a special, special person. He's one of the creators of heavy metal music. A wonderful man.
I hope he and Sharon's lives are very happy."
Ronnie at the Classic Rock Awards in 2006. Er... so what changed?!

"Sharon told me about a place where they teach you to drink properly. It was the Betty Ford Centre.
I thought, 'That's it! I've been doing it wrong!'. So I walk in, expecting a demonstration of how to drink a Martini, and I say,
'Hi Betty Ford, where's the bar?' This receptionist is like, 'What?!'"
Ozzy Osbourne

"It's ironic that Ozzy can play for the Queen, but not show up for two Ozzfests."
Slayer's Kerry King

"Everybody has their faults. I'm a stuttering Irish git, John [McCoy]'s a fat bastard and Robin [Guy]'s a drummer."
Bernie Tormé of GMT introduces his band-mates at the Peel in Kingston, August 2006

"The record absolutely sucks"
In 2006, Rachel Bolan finally speaks the truth about Skid Row's 'Subhuman Race' album

"I always related more to the guitar than I did to people."
Ritchie Blackmore, also in 2006

"He looks like he's wearing a coyote on his head."
US comedian Andrew 'Dice' Clay on Gene Simmons (it's more of a water buffalo to me)

"The answer is [for the coalition] to get the fuck out of there, build a wall around it and sell fucking tickets."
Lemmy of Motörhead's answer to the Middle East problem

"Everybody chill the hell out, y'know? Go get a cocktail. Relax... They should put in a whole bunch of Irish taverns;
forget the blitzkreig and have a couple of beers."
And Zakk Wylde from Black Label Society's solution to this crisis

"The British music press are fucking wankers. They eat shit in the bath."
Freddie Mercury onstage in London, 1978

"I'm as gay as a daffodil, dear."
Freddie Mercury again

"If I didn't have Freddie Mercury's lyrics to hold on to as a kid, I don't know where I'd be now."
W Axl Rose; thanks a lot for nothing, Fred

"Four inch nails is more like it!"
Courney Love on hitting the sack with Trent Reznor

"If she died tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a tear. She's a very evil person."
Trent on Courtney

"I didn't ask to save rock, I don't even like rock that much."
Trent once more - presumption is his middle name

"Listen, I have no clue who you are, but we both know who I am. So shut the fuck up and listen to my music."
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine silences a heckler

"I'm a family-oriented guy. I've personally started four or five [of them] this year already."
David Lee Roth

"We sound like the Bay City Rollers after an assault by Black Sabbath."
Kurt Cobain on Nirvana

"Fuck political correctness, that went down with the World Trade Centre."
Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P.

"I'm an egomaniac with an inferiority complex."
Eric 'God' Clapton

"I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes."
Jimi Hendrix

"All the bad things that happened to me were directly attributed to drugs and alcohol. I would never piss on the fucking Alamo
at nine o'clock in the morning dressed in a woman's evening dress whilst sober."
Ozzy Osbourne... though midday's not outta the question

"I love women, they should be naked backstage all the time."
Motörhead's Lemmy

"I don't own a gun. Actually, I own about 150 guns."
James Hetfield of Metallica

"Rod Stewart, Elton John and I were going to form a band called Hair, Nose & Teeth, named after the three of us.
But it hasn't happened yet because nobody could agree on the order of the words!"
Freddie 'The Teeth' Mercury

"There was a period during the 1970s when all the acid labs in the world were working at full production, just to keep the Manband supplied."
Deke Leonard, Man

"Here's some songs I used to do with Black Sabbath before they employed a midget. How can a four-foot poof sing about the devil?"
Ozzy Osbourne takes a swipe at Ronnie James Dio onstage in the 80s

"Nicko McBrain and I have had some belting arguments. We've been virtually nose-to-nose screaming at each other,
and with his nose being so flat, that's very close up."
Iron Maiden's Steve Harris

"If I was going to listen to anybody, I'd listen to me. I love the stuff I do. It's the greatest.
I've played things that were just the ultimate. If there had been blind people in the audience,
they'd have walked away from the gig seeing."
Ted Nugent blowing his own trumpet again, back in 1977

"I was supposed to do a solo record many years ago and I wanted Alex Harvey, Steve Marriott and Bon Scott
[all now sadly deceased] to be on it. So if ever I ask you to be on my solo record, say no."
Rick Neilsen, Cheap Trick

"Some people are hams. I'm the whole pig. Look at me, I'll take my shirt off."
Paul Stanley of Kiss. Just don't rupture that hip replacement, Starchild...

"It kinda looks like a German military helmet. It says 'Made in Japan' right back here."
Nick Simmons on his dad Gene's alleged 'hair'

"He'll [do a] work out, but the hair doesn't sweat."
Sophie, Gene's daughter, gets in on the act

"Sebastian Bach hasn't changed. He's still low IQ, high RPM."
Manager Doc McGhee in the VH1 reality show Supergroup

"Who's the fraud now, bitch? Get in the ring. Go to the gym, motherfucker.
Or get a new wig, you fat, botox-faced, wig-wearin' fuck!"
Velvet Revolver's Scott Weiland lays it down to W Axl Rose

"I was the Norman Wisdom [the UK's veteran comedy bungler] of burglary.
I did everything wrong, like wearing gloves with no fingers."
Ozzy Osbourne, 1989

"Crimson Glory are not The Beatles, but we've lasted twice as long."
Jon Drenning, (hopefully) sending himself up in the band's 20th anniversary year of 2006

"Touring with Mötley Crüe [in the summer of 2005] was a farce. We did it just for the money.
Their collective IQ barely reaches room temperature. The funniest thing was that Tommy Lee loves Killing Joke,
but he was so busy filming ladies' breasts to realise we were actually on the road with him. What high culture."
Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman

"The songwriting on their last two records ['Jugulator' and 'Demolition'] just sucked a big dick."
Slayer's master of subtlety, Kerry King, on Judas Priest

"Let Flynn talk some more if he's got stupid shit like that to say. He'll bury himself. But if I was a cartoon character,
I'd probably put a fucking grenade in his gut."
King turns his attention to Robb Flynn from Machine Head

"The guy's a jerk, a lard ass. He's eaten so many cheeseburgers his brain's clogging up.
It's hard to get offended when the guy who's talking trash about you looks like Right Said Fred with a beard,
and wears ass-less leather chaps. Where I live, in San Francisco, that'd be Kerry Queen."
Flynn's top-notch response

"I believe in metal more than anybody you've ever met. I'm prepared to die for metal. Are you?"
Joey DeMaio of Manowar during a 2006 interview with Rock Hard magazine.

"Adding rap to rock music is a bit like taking the most beautiful girl you've ever seen to a plastic surgeon,
then asking him to give her a penis."
Manowar's Karl Logan

"No, not really. I don't think that that publication is too widely circulated."
Peter Steele of Type O Negative on whether his appearance in Playgirl changed his life

"It was a dark day when she got naked in Playboy. Oh my God, girl.
Pay the $3,700 and raise those puppies up - yuk! Hahaha."
Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx on Ginger Spice

"I fucking hate them. It's just Spinal Tap, isn't it? Just a lark. I'm not sure they think so, though."
Jon Bon Jovi on The Darkness

"My epitaph should read: I told you I was sick."
Meat Loaf

"Madam, you're a banquet of a woman!"
David Coverdale, to a lady who exposed her breasts at Whitesnake's Hammersmith Apollo show

"I got rabies shots for biting the head off a bat, but that's okay - the bat had to get Ozzy shots."
Ozzy Osbourne

"It's not how big your pencil is; it's how you write your name."
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine

"I think that quotes are very dangerous things."
Kate Bush

"Sir Cliff [Richard]'ll never stop doing 'Summer Holiday', and it's the same with us."
Pete Way, on why UFO still play so many songs from their live album 'Strangers In The Night'

"I wouldn't know about any of the newer bands. We're a bit past the pimple stage."
AC/DC's Angus Young

"I was born in 1949 - which seems like a long time ago. Actually, it is a long time ago, when I think about it."
Rick Wakeman of Yes

"Angels cry because they want to experience what you and I feel: the moment. They live in eternity.
They don't know what it is like to read a newspaper and get ink on your fingers. They don't know what it is like
to take your shoes off and wiggle your toes under the dinner table."
Carlos Santana

"People see our logo and think we are blood-drinking devil worshippers. Which we are, of course."
Adrian Smith, Iron Maiden

"David Lee Roth was great in Van Halen, no question about it. He was one of the best at being Mr. Rock Star.
20 years later it's sickening to see a guy still trying to be that but wearing a wig."
Sammy Hagar

"At our age, you don't want to stop. Because if you stop, you might not get back up again."
Alex Van Halen

"The success of The Osbournes as a TV show is an indictment of the soullessness of mankind."
Ted Nugent, for once speaking from his mouth and not his behind

"They were doing a dance that [they hoped] would give them some credibility."
Slayer's Kerry King, when asked if Cradle Of Filth had been doing a raindance backstage at Ozzfest 2002

"I won't bother retaliating. If you read what Kerry has said about other bands, I'd actually take that as a compliment from the old git."
The response from COF's Dani Davey

"What did Jesus Christ really do? He hung out with hard-drinking fishermen."
Iggy Pop

"We've got a long career ahead of us and it's going to be great. Trust me."
Dan Hawkins, The Darkness

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not."
Kurt Cobain

"I'd rather be dead than cool."
Kurt Cobain again, speaking of whom...

"The whole grunge thing is so... wrong. It's non-music."
Ritchie Blackmore

"One out of every 100 interviews I do, I get a real journalist."
Glenn Danzig

"One time Robert Plant was set to check into the same room after I checked out, so I removed every light bulb,
ordered up a bunch of stinky cheese and put it under the mattress."
Richard 'Party Animal' Marx

"There's a big lie in this business. That lie is that it's okay to go out in flames. It doesn't do anybody much good.
I may be wrong, but I think Hendrix was trying to come around."
The late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan before his own death in a 1990 helicopter crash

"When I die, I'll probably climb out of the coffin and play the organ at my own funeral!"
Rick Wakeman again

"Geoff Tate is a two-faced douche bag. His new name should be Geoff Taint. Screw him, he's now on my shitlist."
Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater rages for order about Queensrÿche's singer

"There are some wimps - pussies - throwing things. But you're not hitting us, you're hitting the people at the front,
and those people are one of you. So I got a deal. All those who want to throw shit at Twisted Sister,
meet us at the side of the stage afterwards. I don't care how many of you are.
You can tell us we suck to our faces. We're ready... are you?!"
Twisted Sister's Dee Snider offers out the Reading Festival, 1982

"Ninety-nine per cent of my life is shit. With Iron Maiden, with my solo stuff, whatever it is.
But if I'm really lucky one per cent of it will be a little weenie bit of genius, and that's what sustains it all."
Bruce 'Always Look On The Bright Side' Dickinson

"What are we thinking of calling the next album? 'Whip It Out, Wipe It And Slide It Back In Again'!"
David Coverdale in 1985

"I always wanted to be a basketball player."
Ronnie James Dio when asked a fact that his fans might not know about him

"When I started singing high-pitched metal tunes my mom said, 'You sound like a dying cat'."
Sebastian Bach

"I want people around me who are creative, lively, interested and interesting. Dave [Gilmour] is none of those things.
He doesn't have any ideas and he's not really interested in people who do, espect insofar as
they can write records that he can put his name on - which is what has been happening since I left Pink Floyd."
Roger Waters, speaking in 1999

"If our new album [1992's 'Dehumanizer'] doesn't sell, Tony [Iommi] and I are gonna open a bed and breakfast."
Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler

"My name is Francis and I'm an alcoholic."
Ex-It Bites singer/guitarist Francis Dunnery switches on a kettle on top of an amplifier
to begin a solo show at Dingwalls in London

"Bad-mouthing Ted Nugent is like picking on a cripple. His new band is so bad. 17 people and none of them can play but him."
Sammy Hagar, speaking in 1982

"David Lee Roth's problem is that he lives with a man, you see. He's probably curious about my wife
because he'd like to have a relationship with me. But I'm not interested in that stuff."
Sammy again, from the same interview

"Ronnie Montrose is going bald. He's also ugly as shit. He's such an asshole, I want that to be the headline of this article."
The Red Rocker once more

"My wife's 34 double Ds!"
Slayer's Tom Araya, responding to a question about his biggest influences

"He was put into an escape pod and jettisoned into outer space."
Rob Zombie explains the mysterious departure of White Zombie's drummer Ivan de Prume

"They were hilarious. It was like seeing Spinal Tap. I expected them to go into 'Sex Farm' at any second."
Henry Rollins on the time Black Flag opened for Venom in 1986

"The Darkness are a lovely band because I think they're taking the piss. And if they're serious, well, that's very sad indeed"
Dan McCafferty of Nazareth

"Who the fuck's Dan McCafferty anyway? Get him to talk to Brian May about us."
Dan Hawkins from The Darkness, mere seconds after admitting his band had considered
using Nazareth's 'Please Don't Judas Me' as their live intro tape.

"He's a real consummate piece of excrement, just a bad person. I wouldn't piss down his throat if his heart were on fire."
Ex-Journey singer Steve Perry, described by the band's original manager Herbie Herbert

"He was a total piece of shit; a fuckin' asshole. I should've just driven away and found a real human being."
Herbie Herbert recalls Jonathan Cain's arrival in Journey

"W Axl Rose has the finest voice since Otis Redding."
James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers needs a new hearing aid

"Two days ago we saw this guy who had his whole back tattooed with our portraits. How stupid is that?"
Peter Criss, then still of Kiss, speaking to Playboy magazine 1999

"David Coverdale is good singer and a super chap. He likes himself a great deal, which is fine.
His nickname in Whitesnake was 'Elsie'."
Ex-Deep Purple/Whitesnake keyboard player Jon Lord

"We called it a day due to a lack of interest from all parties, including band members, record companies and managers.
A couple of people left, and I didn't want to become a David Coverdale sort of character."
'Handsome' Mick Ransome explains the 1992 demise of his band the Tattooed Love Boys

"I must have tea when I'm on the road. No kettle, no show."
Angus 'Hellraiser' Young of AC/DC

"Hello England!"
Marc Storace of Krokus invites open warfare at Glasgow Apollo, Scotland

"David Lee Roth should form a new band called Van Inhalen."
Sebastian Bach reflects on Diamond Dave's 1993 marijuana bust

"Ah, there's a nice selection of titties down at the front tonight.
Gentlemen, isn't it awfully nice to have a penis? Ah yes, it's delightful to have a dong."
David Coverdale celebrates his masculinity

"The day that this group becomes a machine is the day it's over."
Gene Simmons of Kiss, back in 1992

"You're going to have to be relegated for that comment. You're in the first division now."
Ronnie James Dio, when Classic Rock's Geoff Barton suggested
that 'Invisible' sounds like an Ozzy Osbourne ballad

"We kind of kicked off the whole grunge/independent thing
before it ever happened."
Poison's Bret Michaels

“The secret of our success is pork scratchings in the trousers.
It makes you jump about a lot onstage.”
Lemmy of Motörhead

“Lady Diana… what a fox. I’d drag my dick through a mile of
broken glass just to jerk off in her shadow.”
Ted Nugent, Hammersmith Odeon, February 1984

"What does the new album sound like? Ha ha. if you were a salmon and I were a hammer!"
Bruce Dickinson previews Iron Maiden's 'Brave New World'

“I always figured that everyone had a bush. It wasn’t specifically female. We all come from bush.”
Gavin Rossdale on the origins of his former band’s name

“Whaddya mean minor?!”
David Lee Roth when asked why he behaves like a minor deity

“Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons.”
Alice Cooper