Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I think what television and video games do is reminiscent of drug addiction. There's a measure of reinforcement and a behavioural loop. "
Walter Becker
Addiction
Think
Video Games
Related Quotes:
" I think every time, before we do an album, we have a discussion where we sort of consider the idea of doing something radically different. "
Walter Becker
Doing
Discussion
Before
" Given a choice between Charlie Mingus and Eric Dolphy or Joe Strummer and Lou Reed, there was no choice. I like Reed and Strummer, but it's kiddie music. "
Walter Becker
Choice
Like
Music
" I thought Twitter was a joke. I really thought it was a gag. I thought it was like National Lampoon or the Onion. "
Walter Becker
Gag
Like
Onion
" Singing, for me, means singing as loud as I can. "
Walter Becker
Means
I Can
Loud
" My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well known blues musicians. "
Walter Becker
People
Time
Musicians
" When you start to work with someone, there's a negotiation that takes place involving what's going to happen when you have a difference of opinion. Most attempts at collaboration never survive the negotiation. Merely being agreeable is not enough. "
Walter Becker
You
Work
Start
" Let's face it, us '60s folks had pretty high expectations. "
Walter Becker
High
Us
Expectations
" In the '70s, my playing was completely untutored, but it sounded good to me, and I tried to find ways to make those very simple things work in more ambitious contexts. "
Walter Becker
Good
Me
Work
" If there's a strange way to do something, I would certainly like to know about it. I feel that I owe that to my public. "
Walter Becker
Like
Strange
Way
" When you're collaborating with somebody, there has to be a spirit of cooperation. There are a lot of times when you just can't persuade someone to write a certain type of song, either musically or lyrically. "
Walter Becker
Song
Spirit
Cooperation
" We fly to the town in the little private airplane, and then we have to get in cars and drive to the hotel and then drive to the gig. So, I want to do a tour where the performances will actually be at the small airports. "
Walter Becker
Hotel
Drive
Want
" If any artist abuses his audience as a means to any end, noble or ignoble, he better have a damn good reason for it. "
Walter Becker
He
Good
Artist
" 'Deacon Blues' was special for me. It's the only time I remember mixing a record all day and, when the mix was done, feeling like I wanted to hear it over and over again. It was the comprehensive sound of the thing: the song itself, its character, the way the instruments sounded, and the way Tom Scott's tight horn arrangement fit in. "
Walter Becker
Day
Remember
Song
" It's great fun to play with a really good band. "
Walter Becker
Good
Fun
Band
" Originally, we had a band known as Steely Dan. As we moved away from the band, we got whoever was appropriate for specific tunes. In a lot of cases, we gravitated toward jazz players who had more sophisticated harmonic concepts. "
Walter Becker
Jazz
Band
More
" We opened for the Kinks, the Beach Boys, the Guess Who, Chuck Berry, Sha Na Na. We opened for Cheech and Chong - I opened for Cheech, and Don opened for Chong. "
Walter Becker
Beach
Guess
Who
" There are some things that I write that I know are personal in a way, or the gag is so obscure that it's just for me, and there's other things that could basically be for anybody or be anything, at least until the lyrics start to get written. "
Walter Becker
Personal
Obscure
Me
" Rock music is being systematically merged with fashion. "
Walter Becker
Rock
Being
Fashion
" Going out and looking for managers is like going out and looking for rattlesnakes. "
Walter Becker
Looking
Like
Going
" I don't think that the Grammys are in any way a just way of grading music. "
Walter Becker
Grammys
Any
Just
" It's good - it's great when somebody who is 20 years younger than you comes up and says, 'Wow, we just got turned on to you guys, and you're really great,' or something like that. I like that. "
Walter Becker
Got
Good
Great
" I think the audience for Limp Bizkit is probably not going to be particularly interested in what we're doing. I don't think they'll find much that satisfies them in what we do. "
Walter Becker
Audience
Going
Find
" The more of what our music does violates the premise of its format that it's presented in, the better. So, hearing our music in the supermarket, a Muzak version, is great. "
Walter Becker
Music
More
Our
" Most of our songs are about relationships. "
Walter Becker
Relationships
Our
Most
" From a linguistic point of view, you can't really take much objection to the notion that a show is a show is a show. "
Walter Becker
Point
View
Show
" I think we're right up there with Herman's Hermits and the other greats. Maybe somewhere between Herman's Hermits and the Gershwins. "
Walter Becker
Somewhere
Up
Think
" I love guys like Charlie Parker. "
Walter Becker
Charlie
Love
Like
" We have been fortunate enough to do something that has always been out of the mainstream and yet have an audience for what we do. "
Walter Becker
Out
Audience
Enough
" We play rock & roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz. "
Walter Becker
Flow
Swing
Rock
" ABC had all these schlocky, bubblegum acts, and we had to come up with suitable material for them. In which we were amazingly unsuccessful. "
Walter Becker
Up
Unsuccessful
Material