Musicians

"We're just going to play the hell out of it until they can't take it anymore."

"When someone like Kurt Cobain or Jack White comes out, they didn’t go, “He sounds just like Muddy Waters,” did they? They just said, “He’s great, he sounds like him.” When women come out and men write about them, they tend to write about them in a way that other men can understand, which sometimes can seem a bit patronizing."

"We are able to speak for ourselves through our music rather than being defined and put into the spotlight in a very male kind of groomed way for an obviously predominantly male audience."

"Arctic Monkeys are a great band, but bands like that sometimes spend a lot of time reminding people about the shitiness of reality. I don’t want to sing for half an hour, reminding people about how shit Sheffield is — unless it’s for one verse or a joke."

"I love dressing up. I’m from a huge African family and grew up in a really colorful place. The way I dress reflects my environment and wanting to take people into a fantasy world for half an hour."

"It's quite spiky, quite dramatic, theatrical rock 'n' roll really."

"I love the intimacy of small venues, I really do, I like that look that people have that they feel like they're special and they can hear and they can see the band as well."

"I think of the Ramones when I think of music that can save your life, but I’m not so sure about a band like Fall Out Boy who appears to make music in vein or that, at least, doesn’t sound like something they would die for."

"I can tell you how I feel about you night and day."

"(When asked about his Westwood experiences) Westwood was a fantastic place to work, with great people, great games we created, and we all really loved what we did. We were passionate about it. I have so many great memories there, and the ironic thing is I actually regret not having attended more of the fun company functions and parties while I was instead playing club gigs with bands with the mentality of trying to get signed or discovered. Granted thats the kind of thing you try for when you're young, but it took awhile to sink in, that my real future and career was already under my nose. Lots of funny stuff happened. Office pranks, fun extra content we created, certain personalities that always made you laugh. Just all of life's experiences along the way whether it was staying in an awful hotel on a business trip, or trying to set-up an embarrassed co-worker with a date, it's all great stuff you can laugh about later. When Westwood closed it was truly the end of an era, but in a way it has been resurrected at Petroglyph where I am now. Half the company are old Westwood employees and although it's a different time in the industry, we are all thankful to still be working together and making the best games we can."

"(When asked what shaped his musical preferences) That comes from many directions. My parents, relatives, and friends shaped a good part of that, and whatever I heard on the radio and mtv growing up (back when MTV was actually a music channel instead of a teenage reality show channel) and movies I loved, just wherever it came from that exposed me to it I would weed out quickly what I did and didn't care for. My music tastes have always been diverse, though I tried to kid myself at certain times that I only like this or that, no matter what everything I ever liked has still stuck with me so I learned to embrace that and not close myself off to things."

"The first song I ever wrote back then was the song that landed me the job as composer at Westwood Studios, which was remarkable for me at the time. It was basically an acoustic guitar song with electric guitar leads and keyboard strings, and raining sound effects in the background. If I had to compare it to anything, it was probably similar to an interlude Queensryche song. I never released this song before, but I've recently been thinking about re-recording it with the experience I have now and really making it sound proper. Maybe one day."

"Metal is back. (concerning the music for the Hierarchy faction of Universe at War: Earth Assault)"

"Command & Conquer is very much a part of what my style...was founded on, combining the various elements of rock, electronic, hip-hop, and contemporary edge with some orchestral and some what-not—it comes down to not having limitations on what it is you can do, and when you have a project like this that allows you that freedom and that creativity to thrive, you can really take advantage...I think the biggest difference now is, imagine my mindset and the way I was thinking and writing when Command & Conquer first came out, and add about fifteen years experience to that—I think that's what you can expect from Universe at War."

"(Continued) The ironic thing is that my original goal in life was to be in a famous band, tour the world and sell millions of albums. Although that didn't quite happen, I got something else just as gratifying. Instead of being in a famous band, I gained some fame in the industry as a game composer. Instead of touring the world, I receive fan mail from around the world. Instead of selling millions of albums, my music is on millions of games! And I sell enough of my own albums that allows me to keep releasing them. So in a different way, I kind of got what I wanted after all. And I'm more than happy with that. The most fulfilling part of it is that I feel I contributed something that mattered to a significant number of people, and more importantly, I got to be a part of projects that mattered a lot to my life personally, like Star Wars!"

"(When asked to reflect on his career) Music is the emotion of the experience. Regarding whether someone knows composers by name, it comes down to how much the music had touched someone that they then care enough to find out who composed it. Myself as an example, I get a dozen or so fan emails every single day, from all over the globe. Most of the time it's new people that are just now figuring out who I am after all their years of playing games I've done, and that I composed some of their favorite game music or just their favorite game in particular. And it never gets old even though I've been reading them and answering them ever since I launched my website www.frankklepacki.com about seven years ago. You can't beat knowing you've had that kind of impact on people on a regular basis. I am always very grateful for it. Some of my fans cared enough to spread the word about my career that they made a full feature article on Wikipedia. That blew me away!"

"(When asked about pop music) Pop music has become the largest farce in music history. It is soul-less, mechanical, and only made for the sole purpose of making the fastest dollar possible, with more emphasis on imagery than the music. I would much rather remain an independent recording artist who can dictate his own creativity and make it available to a smaller community of fans then sign with a major label under conditions of compromising my work just to sell lunch boxes and sound like every other thing out there. The only artists that have any longevity are the ones that pioneer a movement not follow a movement. The hundreds of following wannabes always get left in the dust or remain one-hit-wonders."

"(When asked about gaming) I have a few favorites: Stand-up arcade game - 720 degrees, RTS - Command & Conquer & Star Wars Empire at War, FPS - Unreal Tournament 2004. As far as RPGs, I prefer good old D&D on paper for that. The game industry is as strong as the music and film industry now, and crosses over into both as well. I still play all the games I just mentioned every now and again. I find it intriguing that retro-gaming has come back in a big way. All the old arcade games from the 80s seem to have found their way back in the form of built in joysticks that plug into TVs. Xbox360 has live arcade downloads, the Wii has classic Nintendo and Turbo Graphix downloads, it's very interesting. I think people are recognizing once again that simple short fun experiences are just as good as having long huge production experiences. Theres something out there for everyone, and gaming is as much for adults as it is for kids. I love variety in gaming. For a good while there was too much of the same types of games year after year, and it feels like we're seeing more creativity again, which is a good thing."

"There's people who can't spell 'weird' right driving round with thousands in the bank; but I get by, got a lot on my mind; I get by, got allotments on my mind."

"I could put a tennis racket up against my face and pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki."

"There's no room for enigmas in built-up areas."

"There was one in the gang who had Scalextric, and because of that he thought he was better than you."

"Mention The Lord of the Rings just once more, and I'll more than likely kill you."

"Brian Moore's head looks uncannily like London Planetarium."

"There's a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets."

"Help me Mrs Medlicott, I don't know what to do, I've only got three bullets and there's four of Mötley Crüe."

"Car crime's low, the gun crime's lower, The town hall band CD, it's a grower, You never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce, Although there was a drive-by shouting once, But there's a brass band everywhere, And I don't drive so I don't care, And as a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square, What's Chatteris if you're not there?"

"I'm off to see The Bootleg Beatles as the bootleg Mark Chapman."

"No frills, handy for the hills, that's the way you spell New Mills."

"She died with her telly on, 87 and confused, With not enough hospital beds 'cos all the money’s been used, On the end of the century party preparations, And they reckon that the last thing she saw in her life, Was Sting, singing on the roof of the Barbican."

"I know Bono and he knows Ono, she knows Eno whose phone goes thus: "Brian's not home, he's at the North Pole, but if you'd like to leave a weird noise...""

"When I'm pining for a cigarette, I think of all the free ones that I'd get, if I killed myself and came back as a beagle, WOOF!"

"The three men I admire most -- the father, son, and Mickie Most -- took the last train for the coast, and rendezvoused with Peter Glaze, to kill Don Maclean."

"Universities are turning out thousands of reporters. They are quite bright and they don't have to rhyme."

"I started to see human beings as little lonesome, water based, pink meat, life forms pushing air through themselves and making noises that the other little pieces of meat seemed to understand. I was thinking to myself, 'There's five billion people here but we've never been more isolated.' The only result of the aggressive individualism we pursue is that you lose sight of your compassion and we go to bed at night thinking, 'Is this all there is?' because we don't feel fulfilled."

"Did you see my spread in Playgirl? I spread like a motherfucker!"

"I suck dick for crack money!"

"The thing with the STRAPPING thing is that, it might sound cheesy but whatever I say I'm going to do I'm going to do. I told them I'd do five records — I did five records. At the end of it they offered us this big deal, we'll re-sign you, we've got all these big bands that'll take you out on the road now. I just said 'I'm done, I told you, I'm done.' There's a good chance that if it hadn't gone to the level that it has then we might be doing it still."

"I think I have more of a fear of success. I want to have a good time, I want to hang out with my friends and laugh about shit, I want to make music where I can just say 'Hey, check this out, this is crazy, have a listen…and anyway, what did you do today?'"

"I want the ability to do whatever I want without a whole fleet of lawyers and record companies analyzing it and telling me what to do. It's like the success of doing it that way doesn't mean enough to me as an artist or a person for me to fight about it. I'm not going to fight anymore I'm just going to do it the way I want to do it. Why am I going to do it that way and be so obstinate? Because I don't care enough about it to spend that much time on it."

"Can you imagine a fulfilled society? Whoa, what would everyone do?"

"Lula is not, and never was, fit to be a president."

"It is better to live ten years at a thousand [miles per hour] than a thousand years at a ten"

"They are laundry detergents who sing."

"Gil can't be a minister and, at the same time, work for a record company. It's the same as if the president of FED was an executive of BankBoston."

"That movie about Cazuza looks like an episode of Malhação. The 1980s rock music was junk."

"All the other stuff - the socialising and drinking and stuff that people say are important parts of university because it teaches you social skills - is fucking nonsense, because you learn that at infant school or comprehensive. Or at least, you're meant to. I think if I'd been able to have a flat of my own it would have been very different because I've never been very good with very many different people. I've always surrounded myself with just a very few people. To hole myself up in a tower block with hundreds of people I had nothing in common with was a really bad experience."

"...the women are as bored as the men, but the men will go out to the pub and beat the shit out of everyone else; the women will stay at home and concentrate on surviving."

"In terms of the 'S' word, that does not enter my mind. And it never has done. In terms of An Attempt. Because I am stronger than that. I might be a weak person, but I can take pain."

"Culture, Alienation, Boredom and Despair."