First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"So, let me get this straight, if I take LSD and heroin, I’ll play like Jimi Hendrix? Really?! I beg to differ. I guarantee there are guitarists down at Guitar Center without a record contract that are on LSD and heroin and will never make any money playing music. They’re putting that little theory to the test every day. I don’t buy it. I don’t care what you do, but I don’t see alcohol and drugs as being anything other than a way to make whatever problems you have in your life bigger."
"Where I grew up was counterproductive, stifling, boring and didn’t help me at all ... We made 99 percent of our music when we moved to California and I was a much happier person."
"You have to understand that my area of expertise is in music. For me to step outside of that area and make comments on social issues or political issues is crazy. Don't listen to me, because I honestly believe that people should look to higher sources than entertainers for their political beliefs. And whenever I hear people do that, you know, it irritates the fuck out of me, because I can't stand it, to hear some rock'n'roller or pseudo-rock'n'roller talking about how the world should run. Like, what do you know? You can't even write a good song, you think I should listen to you about who I should vote for? That's insane."
"Musicians tend to lose perspective. Here is a perfect example: I was on tour in Australia a little while back and prior to leaving I read this huge article on Neil Young where he is telling the interviewer how we should all convert our cars to electric and support the whole green thing. He converted one of his Cadillacs to electric and he feels everyone should do their part and follow the same standard of living to save the environment ... Who do I meet on that tour in Australia? The guy who flies Neil Young’s private jet. This guy tells me that Neil hasn’t flown commercial in more than 30 years. These artists want you and me to drive around in golf carts and sit under 2 watt bulbs while they are jet setting around the world! It’s crazy."
"Even though we have been around and making records for 25 years, they hate us because we don’t play their game and we are not flying around in private jets. Why do you think they latch onto Paris Hilton and Courtney Love? You don’t need talent when you have the bucks to back it up! That is the mentality, understand that."
"Now, Nirvana. I always liked those guys, but I never liked when they got big, I never liked the people around them. I never liked their management and never liked any of the people that worked with them. And then you mix in the drugs, and the people that brought with it. And it’s a sordid tale. And it’s not a happy ending."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.