David Johansen

The first Latin music that blew my mind was bumba, which was a Puerto Rican beat.

My father was a Norwegian tenor and my mother a New York Irish librarian.

Sometimes I've found that by getting into a certain drag, or a certain feeling, you can cast off your mortal coil and really do something. I don't know if it's important, but it's something. It's entertainment.

Everything I've done I've just fallen into.

I'm doing exactly what I want to do, and I'm having fun doing it.

We thought that's the way you were supposed to be if you were in a rock 'n' roll band. Flamboyant.

Playing music is the best thing in the world. It makes show business almost bearable.

As I recall, my life as a child was so all-consuming that I barely had time to consider the future.

I don't know why I'm alive but I know there's a reason for it.

I got arrested once on stage in Memphis for looking too much like Liza Minnelli.

The stuff that I dig, it's usually got a soulful component to it. A singer that I really like. I might not understand the language that they're singing in, but I'm really communing with this person.

I'm not impersonating anybody. I'm perfectly satisfied with what I am.

When I'm sleeping I do a lot of living.

Most bands are commercial enterprises. But I'm not in one of those bands.

I've been around the block a couple of times, and the guy I am now is the guy I like to be.

When you're a kid, you have this feeling like you're indestructible. Your mortality doesn't even occur to you. But as time goes by, you realize, 'I better cut this out or that out if I want to continue to exist.'

I mean, if you asked me what I'm going to be doing when I'm 85, I'd make a quick picture in my mind and, well, I'll be singing.

I'm compelled to paint nearly every day. I just felt like making a painting, went out and bought paints and a canvas. Now it fulfills me creatively when I'm not doing music: it's something you can do by yourself and it's totally yours. It's a great adjunct to my life.

You try things on in life. You wear them for a while, and you see what's next.

Until I was six years old we lived in the projects, then my two brothers and three sisters and I moved to a three-bed that my mother's father built.

I still do a lot of shows with Brian Koonin, but we haven't had a full band lately.

You know when you read that someone has to leave a show or a tour because they had 'nervous exhaustion'? Well, I had one of those and discovered that I was quite close to death. I always assumed that my lifestyle was going to take me at an early age, but when it was actually occurring I was, 'Not yet!' I pulled back.

Music is my love and to me acting is more mercenary. I don't pound the pavements for roles: if it happens, it happens. I hate that auditioning thing.

You know, when you're making a record, you come up with 15, 20 songs. Then they start to fall by the wayside as your interest wanes. It's kind of like a process of elimination to determine which songs wind up on the record.

It's really a drag to do the same project over and over again.