I'm busier than a busy person. People aren't scared to play this raucous, harsh music over radio speakers, so I think it's the perfect time to get in with some real serious, heavy bands.

I ended up gettin' a little Gibson amp and a bass, because of Gene Simmons of Kiss. Myself and three other kids would pretend to be Kiss - I liked Gene the best.

It all has to do with art - writing, painting, things I've done for a long time but just never had enough time to pursue. I have poetry - things that are designed for songs, but they're always poems first.

All I want you to do is rock. That'll be forever, man.

I thought I'd do something nice for the band... I'll hang myself.

'I don't want to grow up,' Tom Waits said it. I live it. I put myself in a position to be a kid as long as I want to. I play loud music and scream for a living.

Metallica is going to be one of those bands you look back on in the year 2008, that people will still listen to the way I still listen to Zeppelin and Sabbath albums.

I'm busier than a busy person. People aren't scared to play this raucous, harsh music over radio speakers, so I think it's the perfect time to get in with some real serious, heavy bands.

'I don't want to grow up', Tom Waits said it. I live it. I put myself in a position to be a kid as long as I want to. I play loud music and scream for a living.

A couple years ago I was going to back off and actually thought about retiring, but it keeps calling me back, and I'm going to keep going back as long as it calls me. I really think it has something to do with the good vibes that I feel I've spread through my performance and through the time that I've spent with fans.

After playing with Rob Zombie, I was ready to go, 'OK, this is as far as I'm taking this bass-playing thing. This is the end of the road.' I was ready to kind of hang it up.

I play the real instruments. I don't waste my time with anything else.

I tell you very honestly, 1 billion percent, I have never regretted leaving Metallica.

The past is where its supposed to be.

To look for some kind of insight or meaning in pop songs is not really - well there's plenty of other places where you should probably look first before you start looking for it in a pop song.

When I came into Metallica, I had to do justice to Cliff's work, but I also had to put my own signature on it. No one could be Cliff Burton; Cliff Burton was the Jimi Hendrix of bass.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.

Uhm, I'm the one wanting the lessons! I don't want to say too much about it because I'd rather have you see the movie, but he's trying to find his music.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.

There's an inherent thing in me where, if things are going too smooth, I'll sabotage the hell out of them, just to make the music more of a sanctuary.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

We used to listen to all the marvelous operas on records. Music was a very important part of our lives.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.

Record covers helped me discover a lot of music that I wasn't aware of.

It was very interesting for me because DNA made music without much technical knowledge at all.

So it was out of necessity that Blackheart was born. I think it's great that now, 25 years later, we're not only putting out our own music, but are able to put out music by other bands. That's really exciting for us.

Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized and there's just no outlet, there's no venue for it, in terms of media.

It's part of the calling to at least do a few songs in the show that give people some hope. There's so much hurt in this world and... music is such a great healing balm and a great way to forget your troubles.

I have a 6-year-old, and his thing is to turn on Radio Disney in the car, and I get such an allergic reaction to listening to that music and the context into which it falls. I'm really working on him about that.