I'm not gonna get it all right, but I take my victories, as small as they are.
Billy Squier
My parents are proud of me now. However, when I first became involved with rock music, they were afraid.
For me, music is just one road. I dont have a specific pursuit; generally. I just try to be more aware of myself.
I don't feel any great need to dress in funny-looking clothes and be recognized as a star, nor do I get that much satisfaction out of hanging around all the main clubs so people can see who I am.
People say, 'When are you making this comeback?' I say, 'It's not a comeback, it's a record.' They say, 'Where have you been all these years?' I say, 'I've been making records.'
You can't just say, 'God help me,' and he's there. It takes a little bit more work on the part of the individual, I think.
Seeing a young band, seeing that hunger and the raw spontaneity, is good for me. It keeps me young, so to speak.
I don't try to be difficult. I just care so much about these albums that I get crazed sometimes when I'm making them.
I read one article that called me the 'latest pretender to the Led Zeppelin throne.'… If I saw the guy I'd knock him out. Because that's not true - I'm not pretending anything. If my records sell, it's because of me.
At all points, you have to look at what you're doing and say, 'Do I want to do this?' 'Am I up to it?' 'Am I strong enough?'
I always loved music. I liked to go to church because I liked to sing the hymns.
Usually, when I'm having a good time, I don't think about it that much. I tend to become more reflective or introspective.
I heard that I was off traveling around the world skiing in Argentina and things like that. I may have had a great life in somebody's mind, but all I was seeing was 9th Avenue while going from my house down to the studio in New York City.
Music became so commercialized that I just didn't want anything to do with it. I renounced the industry before it became the fashionable thing to do.
Most of us, whether we like it or not, we grow up and start having a different view of what we've done and who we are and where we're going.
What I do is a bit broader in scope than a heavy metal band like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, ACDC and so on.
Life isn't that complicated on paper. It's made more complex by the day and age we live.
There's a time that you realize that you're not gonna get out of a room without playing certain songs.
Music is cyclical, but I've never thought of the music I make as being so off the wall or left field that it wouldn't always have an audience that would relate to it.
I don't sit around going, 'What is the matter with me? What do I have to do to get a hit?' And I don't also sit home and listen to my record every day and get drunk and go, 'Wow, this is great.'
It would be easier to be more mysterious, but I try to be accessible.
There's this raw, basic quality people expect in my music.
I was very humbled by the 'one-man Led Zeppelin' comparisons.
I don't really like fighting.
Singing is the form I've chosen to express myself. It's the way I emote best.
I can put on 'Revolver' or 'Led Zeppelin II' and then 'Tell the Truth' and there is no quality gap.
Take 'The Stroke,' for instance. Plenty of people saw sexual connotations in that song but to me it was about what goes on in the business world.
I guess I could sit around and say, 'Gee, I wish I were playing at the Capital Centre tonight instead of Hammerjacks,' but it doesn't happen.
I got out of the business because I went from being the biggest artist on my record label to someone they didn't even want to have around.
But I don't let my bad feelings rule my life. I acknowledge them because I can't pretend they aren't there.
I don't have to forsake my career as a musician. I know how to write songs - that's not going to leave me. But I think it's good to explore some other avenues.
We do things instinctively and not necessarily rationally. It's almost like we're being controlled by unseen forces, which is something I don't like. I've been making a real effort to try to find out what those forces are and get them out of my life.
I just stopped playing. I did some screenwriting and got into the nature thing. Music kind of went away.
So everybody is trying to play like Eddie Van Halen. I think it's rubbish. I think Eddie's great, but everyone's trying to do what he does and it doesn't make for a lot of interesting music.
I try to remember our relative insignificance on this planet and that these seemingly important things do not mean quite as much as we think they do.
I always wanted to merge heavy metal with pop music, but I think that because I grew up more with pop, the Beatles and the Stones, I tended to affiliate myself with those projects.
Studio work is very methodical, while live concerts must be very spontaneous.
I was a good-looking, sexy guy. That certainly didn't hurt in promoting my music.
Following the example of Bruce Springsteen or Bob Seger, I wanted to have a band, a sound and a personality, yet maintain a singular position of being able to control and motivate the flow of things.
I was good at sports - basketball, football, tennis and dropped them all. At 16, I didn't care about sports anymore.
If 'Emotions in Motion' comes out right, I can write the book on the formula rock star.
I have a great deal of respect for myself as a musician and a writer, even if I'm not doing it anymore.
Becoming a Top Ten artist has surprised me.
It certainly is a positive thing… having a trademark.
When I write the songs, I don't dictate how people should interpret them.
Certainly, I don't believe in rebellion for its own sake. But I think if you strive to do something in an individualistic way, you just become a rebel by definition.
I think if you're going to a concert and spending $15 for a ticket for you and your girlfriend, then you're going to buy a T-shirt, and you end up spending close to $100 a night, what with gas in the car and anything else to get you in the spirit of things, I just think that people deserve their money's worth.
I'd gone to New York at an early age, and I got beat up a little bit, emotionally. So I thought I'd go home and go to music school.
I'd always envisioned 'The Big Beat' leading off 'The Tale of the Tape' with the biggest drumbeat the rock world had ever heard. I knew I had something good… but I had no idea just how good.
British rock & roll became the gospel for American kids like me.
