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.
I did 10 years on 'Sopranos,' but the whole craft of acting is relatively new to me. I'm still learning that, and I'll be learning that forever.
I've always been very thematic with my work, very conceptual.
Like most people, I've always felt using words like 'best' when applied to art is a fun way for critics to stay busy at the end of the year, and I guess a good way to help get ratings for awards shows, which is fine.
I tell everybody, if you've got a band that works, it's a miracle. It's never going to be perfect, but if it works on some level, hold on to it with both hands and don't ever let it go.
I was a gambler when I was a kid, so when we got to Las Vegas, it was like Mecca.
Half of the modern world goes back as far as Pearl Jam. The real historians go back to U2. But they need to go back further. They have to go back to the '50s and '60s, where things started. That's how you get to be your own personality, by studying the masters. Rock and roll was white kids trying to make black music and failing, gloriously!
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.
It ain't passive. It ain't TV. Go out there and rock n' roll and dance and have fun.
There are... certainly more innovations on 'Revolver'... but the truth of the matter is 'Sgt. Pepper' has something that was just completely different and unique at that moment.
It's a challenge every year with a TV series. You want to keep evolving and keep it going. That's part of the fun.
I believe that hundreds of years from now, history will be divided into pre-1960s and post-1960s.
I didn't care about anything expect rock & roll. So it's nice that it turned out to be something that you find a way to make a living from.
C-17s should be ready to go at various military bases around the world packed with water, food, medical supplies, sleeping bags and tents, all prepared to be air dropped in alongside soldiers and doctors to begin relief efforts.
Your celebrity capital rises and falls in any given year. And when you have some - temporarily, usually - you try to use it for some good.
Little Richard opens his mouth, and out comes liberation.
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.
Boycotts are not something to be taken lightly.
I need a big picture. I can't just do a collection of songs; that doesn't work for me.
In my mind, it's always easier to do a sequel than an original.
As most of the population suffers through life, barely surviving, disappointed and confused day after day, hopeless, wondering what happened to their strong and beautiful country, it is in the media's power to restore, if not some of our quality of life, at least a bit of our peace of mind.
First of all, just because the Tea Party people appear to be generally uneducated, ignorant about the political process, ignorant about economics, confused about their own platform from the beginning, and indelicate when it comes to the craft of diplomacy, doesn't mean they're wrong.
I think I'm one of the few people who have experienced New Jersey becoming fashionable twice in a lifetime.
I was very lucky with 'The Sopranos.'
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.
Sometimes there's no qualitative difference between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half hour shows. It's just a matter of how long you do it. It's not like the show must be three hours and 30 minutes to work. That's just not the case.
Primal Scream could be the biggest band in the world. They are fantastic when they make rock records - once every 10 years.
To walk into a studio, for me, is just like walking onto a beach or something.
As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.
'Born to Run' was a mixture of things but mostly about youth and fantasies.
Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.
I was 100 percent political in the '80s - the first time around, let's call it, my first life as an artist.
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.
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 am interested in the interaction of a group of people who have a common goal, or a common obsession, each contributing something unique to make something greater than the sum of its parts. I don't know why, but from day one, that has interested me.
They legislate fatherhood in Norway. It's not an option. That's a shocking thing to us in America.
You're either on the Republican team or the Democratic team, and all that matters is that your team wins. Judging by history, regardless of which team wins, the people always lose.
Netflix completely shook up the world.
Timing really is nearly everything. And what it isn't, circumstance makes up for.
I don't wake up every day and just write to write. I only write with purpose.
The rock era, as I clock it, went from '65 to '94, from 'Like a Rolling Stone' to Kurt Cobain's death.
Being a rock n' roll star ain't a part-time gig.
Part of the job of being a producer is the Vulcan mind meld, where you listen not to what they're saying but what they mean.
Life should never be boring.
I learned a lot from Bruce Springsteen and David Chase.
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.
Believe me, if Donald Trump didn't have some point that he's making, hitting home with people, he could not have come this far - as much as a showman as he may be.
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.
