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" My father was not really into popular music; I had to learn about that for myself. "
Todd Rundgren
Learn
Really
Music
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" The New York Dolls did not think of themselves as punk rock. There was no such term at the time. They were just another band in what was called the New York scene. "
Todd Rundgren
Time
Band
New
" The Nazz survived for 18 months - that was my first taste of fame on some level and of the overall experience of being in a band. There are good and bad aspects, and I got to taste some of both, and, well, it's not as much fun as what you see in 'A Hard Day's Night,' let me just say that. "
Todd Rundgren
Experience
Good
Fun
" I first started doing some somewhat technology-based shows in the '80s. If you wanted to get real technical about it, back in the '70s I used to open up with Utopia with just me on the stage with a four-track tape recorder. So, technically, I've been using the help of various devices pretty much throughout my career. "
Todd Rundgren
Career
Back
Help
" Sometimes being a musician has little to do with viability and everything to do with survivability. Many musicians start out great, and they wind up out of the business in 10 years. "
Todd Rundgren
Business
Musicians
Great
" I never look for music by genre. I look for an artist who puts a dependable trademark on things. Like Elvis Costello - he's a great songwriter who presents his songs in a number of contexts. I feel the same about my own music. "
Todd Rundgren
Great
Feel
Artist
" Every once in a while, we have some sort of movement in music that everyone suddenly wants to work in, like grunge or rap or disco or some other musical phase, and then suddenly, that'll be the thing to do. "
Todd Rundgren
Everyone
Movement
Music
" The problem turned out to be that I never was that kind of an artist. "
Todd Rundgren
Out
Never
Kind
" 'Something/Anything?' was kind of a different record, since I'm playing everything myself. A lot of the songs on there have a particular kind of instrumentation that is much like a guitar quartet, and in some ways, it's an exceptional song on that record because so much of the writing on 'Something/Anything?' is piano-oriented. "
Todd Rundgren
Writing
Song
Myself
" All it takes to become president is money and a certain kind of power. Being president is the first thing I can shoot for, not the highest. It may come to a point where people take rock and roll musicians more seriously than they take politicians. It may eventually turn out that musicians have more credibility. "
Todd Rundgren
Power
People
Money
" I've always done very 'composed' music and worked-out solos. But sometimes it's fun not knowing where you're going. "
Todd Rundgren
Done
You
Not Knowing
" People write me letters and say I should answer them. But I don't like to answer letters. I don't write letters. I've never written my mother one. "
Todd Rundgren
Say
People
Never
" Celebrities are the fodder of much of the media business, so they're always interested in making you seem provocative when you're not, or trying to bring you some sort of embarrassment by revealing something you'd rather not have revealed. That's the downside of celebrity. "
Todd Rundgren
Always
Business
Media
" People have always said that I could have been a highly successful pop artist, if only that were my intention. It never was. My original intention was to be a kind of behind-the-scenes participant in music, to just be a record producer and engineer. And I made a record for myself just so I could have an outlet for my musical ideas. "
Todd Rundgren
Music
People
Artist
" Kids don't want to dye their whole head another color; that's what their mothers do. "
Todd Rundgren
Head
Want
Color
" I've become kind of a haven for people who like pop music, but that's not the only thing they like. They also like music in general and want to be able to expand their own horizons. They haven't completely given up on music and are willing to have somebody mediate new things that are happening in music to them. "
Todd Rundgren
People
Kind
Want
" If all you have is faith, then you never actually know anything. "
Todd Rundgren
Then
Anything
Faith
" I figure it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy; if I make a successful arena rock record, I'll wind up playing arenas! I wouldn't mind being back in that kind of venue because of the kinds of things you can do with production. You can make your shows more interesting, which would be fun to do. "
Todd Rundgren
Fun
Wind
Rock
" When the Beatles first came out, you had to go to a certain amount of trouble to have long hair. You just couldn't have it immediately. Anything you can just go out and get - like platform shoes - is not going to inspire people as much as something they have to go through a little bit of hell to have. "
Todd Rundgren
Hair
People
Long
" If bearing a reputation as a weirdo is all it takes to be a genius, I'm a shoo-in. Come to think of it, half the people I know are geniuses - the other half, peculiarly enough, idiots. "
Todd Rundgren
People
Genius
Know
" I didn't expect to become an artist. I was not comfortable going out on the road. "
Todd Rundgren
Going
Artist
Become
" I don't have a long history of hit singles of my own. I had a few, and I had a little hot streak in the '70s, but I've had a lot of success producing other people. "
Todd Rundgren
Own
History
Success
" I'm not a one-hit wonder as some suggest. I've had a couple of hits, but still, all of my hits were in the '70s. There was pretty much nothing in the '80s, '90s, or in the first full decade into the next millennium. "
Todd Rundgren
Decade
First
Pretty
" There are still people who believe in that and wake up every day believing it's possible, and invest their whole selves in that. "
Todd Rundgren
Day
Wake Up
People
" People get comfort from music. They get joy from it and understanding from it, and most of all, the average person can't do without it in some sense. "
Todd Rundgren
Joy
People
Music
" Most people outside of America won't get it. It's the Easter bunny. It's another lie and I don't understand why we had to invent this character. "
Todd Rundgren
Why
Lie
People
" I don't use any real vintage hardware any longer. That's always been the object as far as gaining control of the studio environment, going back to when I built my first studio, Secret Sound, in New York City. The whole point was to not have to pay studio bills anymore and not be looking at the clock. "
Todd Rundgren
Control
New York
Looking
" Because of the way the record business has kind of stumbled and disintegrated, in a way, you're as likely to sell records at your merch table at your gigs as you are to sell them in a regular record outlet or even online. "
Todd Rundgren
You
Table
Business
" Most people didn't have the bandwidth to download whole albums. And so it brought back this cherry picking idea that the audience would focus on certain songs and possibly be the impetus behind what eventually got on AM radio: the single or whatever. "
Todd Rundgren
Audience
Back
Cherry
" When I got out of high school, I joined a local blues band in Philadelphia - Woody's Truck Stop. "
Todd Rundgren
School
Blues
Band
" There are some things that we know are just not as pleasant as the lies that we tell ourselves, and in that sense in order to endure existence everyone endures a certain amount of dishonesty in their everyday lives. "
Todd Rundgren
Everyday
Existence
Know