Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" The British invasion was the most important event of my life. I was in New Jersey and the night I saw the Beatles changed everything. I had seen Elvis before and he had done nothing for me, but these guys were in a band. "

Steven Van Zandt

Life

Important

Related Quotes:

" I just love that whole Brill Building era. I will always regret not being there. That's where I belong. "

" Netflix completely shook up the world. "

Steven Van Zandt

Shook

World

" I was 100 percent political in the '80s - the first time around, let's call it, my first life as an artist. "

" The energy that comes when you compel people to dance stays with you your whole career - whether you are playing to 100,000 people at Glastonbury or 1,000 kids in a club. "

" I'm very, very proud to have been at what I feel are two of the pivotal moments in this whole new Golden Era of television - one being 'The Sopranos' with HBO and now with Netflix expanding that whole HBO concept to the world and making it more of a global thing. It's been wonderful to witness that from those two vantage points. "

" This conversation with the audience has been going on since, what, '72, '73... Sometimes it's like a conversation after dinner with friends. You're in a restaurant, and you got there at 8 o'clock. Suddenly, you realize it's midnight. Where did the time go? You're enjoying the conversation. It's sort of a natural, organic conversation. "

" In 'The Sopranos,' these guys know their best years are behind them. They have nostalgia for their old traditions. In their minds, they're looking for a time when loyalty mattered, community mattered. E Street is about community, too. People are looking for something real. "

" You can trace the E Street Band directly back to the Rascals. "

" I grew up in a renaissance period, a very lucky time when the greatest music ever made was also the most commercial. We'll never see that again, so for me, there's only one criteria, which is greatness. That's all I care about. Is what I'm doing reaching for greatness? Whether I achieve it or not, that is one hundred percent of my criteria. "

" Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community. "

Steven Van Zandt

Family

Rock

" I have very little interest in the modern world, and I'm not in any way conflicted about that. "

" I met all my heroes on the oldies circuit: Gary U.S. Bonds, Lloyd Price, Little Richard. "

" Whatever I'm doing, I try and keep the quality very high. "

" Little Steven - the songwriter, producer, and arranger - stayed alive doing the 'Lilyhammer' score. That pretty much took up three or four years of my life, and all of my musical energy went into that. "

Steven Van Zandt

My Life

Three

" I was deep into it - worldwide liberation politics as well as domestic - but by the end of the '80s, I had decided it all comes down to one single issue: campaign-finance elimination. "

" My mother remarried when I was young, and my stepfather adopted me. "

Steven Van Zandt

Adopted

Mother

" I had the wonderful good luck of having Jimmy Gandolfini as my mentor and David Chase as my godfather, two of the most talented guys in the history of television. "

" I was obsessed with politics in the '80s. I've recovered and I'm feeling much better now, thank you. "

" The simple fact is we do not live in a democracy. Certainly not the kind our Founding Fathers intended. We live in a corporate dictatorship represented by, and beholden to, no single human being you can reason with or hold responsible for anything. "

" It ain't passive. It ain't TV. Go out there and rock n' roll and dance and have fun. "

" I did nothing but international liberation politics for ten years, and usually it was like, you gain an inch, you lose a half an inch. It's slow going, man. "

" I know what it takes to make a band, how they should interact, what makes a record sound like it's a band - everything having to do with a band, I happen to be into. "

" The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest. "

" When I was younger, I went through the windshield of a car ,and my hair didn't grow back right. I had been wearing scarves occasionally, and I decided that I didn't want to deal with wigs and things, so I just stumbled onto my thing. "

" For me, it all comes down to one issue: if we can get money out of political systems, the whole world will change. "

" Within three hours of a disaster event there should be a recon damage assessment of the infrastructure and an educated guess as to the casualties and degree of imminent human peril. Then make the airdrops of supplies and personnel. Simultaneously, Seabees would be dropped in, with lights and generators, to begin rescue efforts. "

" Where do I begin with 'The Godfather?' It's like explaining why the 'Bible' is so popular. I'll always remember seeing the first one because it was the only time I went to the movies with my grandfather. "

" It's become uncool to play other people's songs, and that's absurd. It has got to change. It's the reason why everything's so mediocre. "

" I'm always surprised when a sequel is not as good or better than the first one. I never understand that. You've already set your own bar. You've already done the hard work. It should be easier to make the second one, but a lot of the times, it's not. "

" My lifelong friend and mentor Frank Barsalona is gone. And the music business as we knew it went with him. "