musicians-from-scotland

"Composers have to be schooled in a deep-seated tradition and learn skills that go back not just generations but centuries. So, you find that even the most thrusting, cutting-edge modernists have a deep knowledge of musical history, and a respect for musical history, and indeed the values and worlds that produced those traditions, including religion. That kind of culture-war stuff that you get sometimes in the other arts just doesn’t really appear in the world of music, because there’s this deep knowledge, respect, understanding, and learning about the art of music. For that reason, you find lots of composers who are all over the place politically, but on many things you could say that they are conserving an ancient craft, an ancient tradition. They’re deeply plugged into the roots and in ways that sometimes other artists and other media are not."

"Writing music for me is easy, and is less stressful than a nine-to-five job. What I find hard is going to meetings and dealing with lawyers. The Hollywood lifestyle is hectic and often you have to survive on just four hours sleep before starting again."

"Going in and out of a song, you know you might just be good enough to improvise a little bit when you’re playing live when you haven’t recorded a song, but then you get a chord and you say, oh, that little bit that I’m playing there, that doesn’t fit quite right, you know, or there’s something missing in that chord. It’s like putting a microscope on the song, you know, and polishing it to the way that you wanted, that’s what I think. I think things like … there was one chord this time, and we’re using good guitars, but nothing sounded right. Slightly out of tune. As you move from the top of the neck to the bottom of the neck, you’d never have noticed it when you were playing live, but when you’re recording it it becomes so so intricate that I think it’s a great way to get into the song"

"As an actor, if you’re lucky enough to get any roles then that’s a good thing. If you can choose a little bit, then even better. I try and read things that are coming up and see what looks interesting. Things morph over the years as you get more and more interested in different things."

"Postmodernism will soon be confirmed as the American academic orthodoxy because it permits, ultimately, the summary dismissal of that last great inconvenience to the free and democratic intellect: the primary text."

"I never fail to be mystified by those who regard the revision of a former opinion as a sign of weakness."

"The audience will always feel far more generous if, as some point in the evening, a little time has been found for them to applaud themselves."

"Yes, I know Marcus Aurelius or Vauvenargues or Chesterton has already said this, and far better; but let’s face it—you weren’t listening then either."

"In the end, the desolate age always turns instinctively to Classicism, which if nothing else legislates against certain kinds of disappointment."

"I’m always amused by those commentators who nervously insist that the working class’s constant use of the word fuck is really just “a form of punctuation.” It is, however, no more or less then what they dread: an inexhaustible river of smelted wrath, a Phlegethon of ancestral grievance."

"My late friend hated book-jackets, and ripped them all off immediately. I think he felt, somehow, that the book was still trying to sell him its contents after he had paid for it (or turn him in, if he had stolen it). Dejacketed, the book is anonymous and valueless. To translate something immediately into this state is an unequivocal act of proprietorship. You remove a book-jacket just as you make a lover naked: before their complete possession, they must be removed from the currency."

"To me, feeling good about yourself as you get older is all about your attitude - if you think you're old, you'll feel old."

"It's important to be open to new experiences. I recently went to Disneyland for the first time in 20 years. There were three of us 60-year-olds on a rollercoaster, screaming our heads off. It was white knuckles all the way and I loved it!"

"We've got so many ideas for songs and good riffs, and the more we work, the more we tour, we're getting more ideas, just more. It's just gonna get better and better. I can't see an end to it. It's like infinity rock and roll."

"Bon was the biggest single influence on the band. When he came in it pulled us all together. He had that real stick-it-to-'em attitude. We all had it in us, but it took Bon to bring it out."

"When I was married, my wife suggested I write a song about her. So I wrote 'She's Got Balls' and then she divorced me!"

"We could be somewhere where you would never expect anyone to know him and someone would walk up and say "Bon Scott!" and always have a bottle of beer for him."

"He made a lot of friends everywhere and was always in contact with them too. Weeks before Christmas he would have piles of cards and he always wrote to anyone that he knew, keeping them informed. Even his enemies I think."

"Often he would trail off with fans who came backstage after a show and go off with them to a party or something. He judged people as they were and if they invited him and he was in the right mood to go, he went. We used to call him 'Bon the Likeable'."

"My new schoolmates threatened to kick the shit out of me when they heard my Scottish accent. I had one week to learn to speak like them if I wanted to remain intact. Course, I didn't take any notice. No-one railroads me, and it made me all the more determined to speak my own way. That's how I got my name, you know. The Bonny Scot, see?"

"Angus? I think he's kinda crazy. Since the first night I saw the band way back in Australia, I knew their manager, and I'd never seen the band before and never even heard of AC/DC. And the manager just said stand here, the band comes on in two minutes. So I stood there and this band comes on and there's this little guy, about that big, with a school uniform and a bag on his back going crazy and I laughed, and I must have laughed for half an hour. And I still laugh, and I think he's great."

"Malcolm? He's the brain [of the band]."

"No matter how long you play rock and roll, songs might change just as long as the balls are there, the rock balls. And that's what's important to us"

"What's a punk band? Hey, who's got a beer?"

"I can't even say the word, it's too early in the day to get upset."

"It keeps you fit - the alcohol, nasty women, sweat on stage, bad food - it's all very good for you."

"I've never had a message for someone in my entire life. Except maybe to give out my room number."

"I'm 33...before AC/DC I've played in a lot of bands in Australia. You're never too old to rock and roll."

"I don't give a fuck what else on the rider, as long I've got Jack Daniels."

"Atlantic reckoned we should use a top Yank producer and appointed one Eddie Kramer to the post. It turns out the guy was full of bullshit and couldn't produce a healthy fart."

"It's nothing to do with us at all, our success is due to the taste of the public."