Quotes

“Have you ever ate a clump of a woman's period before?”

“Now that we're off camera, do you want to talk about dick, too?”

“Tré can mold various pocket pussies out of balloons! Beautiful.”

“Adrienne was taking a human sexuality class and she started talking to me about this class. And for a kid that's 18, some woman that's about 20, 21 years old talking to you about her human sexuality class... well, our conversations got pretty long.”

“Billie and me both wanted to be the class clown. He intrigued me because he could play the guitar. I’d finally found someone who’d listen to all my stupid jokes, and we became best friends. Before that, I played the piano a bit, but I wasn’t doing anything special. But Billie taught me how to play the guitar, and it worked. ”

“If there's one band I hate, it's fucking Slipknot with their ridiculous masks. My God, I can hardly contain myself... a nine-person pile of shit.”

“A lot of assholes from the Bay Area, they fucking split and go to a shithole called fucking Hollywood. I’m staying in Oakland, baby.”

“It would be stupid for me to slag the current music scene. Things are so bad now they're not even offensive. How can I slag NSYNC? That would be like beating up a 13-year-old girl.”

“I think having money, it's kind of mixed emotions about it. The imposter syndrome or something like that. We come from such broke backgrounds – like, my dad was a truck driver and my brother's a plumber. My older brother was a custodian, so very working class background. To have compared to when I had not... it's just been sort of a trip.”

“I waited a lot of years to write songs that were about straight-up politics. There’s no new girlfriends in my life to write about, y'know? So in a lot of ways I had to sort of put myself in a vulnerable position of writing about politics and the things I believe in.”

“We definitely come from a working-class background. We represent people who work hard.”

“America is not supposed to be about the cult of personality; we’re supposed to be about a group of people who are making laws that would make the American people’s lives easier and affordable. Getting good jobs, getting good health care, protecting people from corporations taking advantage of them. I feel like we are completely lost on that, the real American ideal.”

“I’ve always loved the Van Morrison and U2 songs ‘Gloria’ - one being a celebration of womanhood and the other a celebration of God, which is kind of the same thing.”

“We're sitting on the curb in Lisbon and we're just drinking and talking together. [Dave Grohl] said, ‘I’m sorry, I've got the spins.’ I said, ‘Dude, just make yourself throw up!’ He said, ‘YOU make yourself throw up.’ I said ‘OK,’ so I made myself puke. He said, ‘Oh my God, you're disgusting!’”

“I would describe Bono's singing as 50 percent Guinness, 10 percent cigarettes — and the rest is religion. He's a physical singer, like the leader of a gospel choir, and he gets lost in the melodic moment. He goes to a place outside himself, especially in front of an audience, when he hits those high notes. That's where his real power comes from — the pure, unadulterated Bono. He talks about things he believes in, whether it's world economics or AIDS relief in Africa. But the voice always comes first. That's where his conviction lies.”

“I was in Cuba after American Idiot. I took conga lessons for a while. You mix the conga and cymbal parts together... it was fucking hard! Just another weapon in the arsenal in case I ever need to pick up women who are impressed by it.”

“There should be a law against lip syncing. Anybody who can't play live should be either strung up or have their musical talent revoked.”

“I tried my hand at two Sonic Youth records. I had one given to me and I bought two and... I'd be damed if they made more than one spin.”

“I never imagined that our music would be so widely accepted. The situation we’re in now all things we never even dreamed of. People ask me, ‘You dreamed of this, didn’t you?’ I tell them, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I never dreamed of this.’”

“Music is all about sharing the power and love for music with others. If you don’t share it, you’re not having the full experience.”

“Music is something that everyone can enjoy, and it should never be divided into groups by ages or anything like that. With the kinds of records we’ve put out, isn’t it natural that all kinds of people come to see us?”

“The feeling I get when I work with Billie and Mike is something that can’t be put into words. For example, when we write a new song and perform it, I feel a sense of joy that I’m part of it, and the three of us are united in spirit. Even when we’re jamming with other people, I’m always thinking, ‘Ugh, give me a break.'”

“I’d like to study jazz, or Latin, salsa, other kinds of music. Not by playing it myself, but by listening and broadening my musical knowledge.”

“Even when I was homeless and starving, I didn’t sell my drums. I had no home, but I had my drums. Those drums kept me going.”

“We were staying in Copenhagen and this guy comes up to us after the show and he's like, 'Come over to my house and you can meet my roommate, Sleepy.' So we were like, 'OK, we'll go meet Sleepy.' So we go over to his house and get in our sleeping bags and get ready to crash out. And then all of a sudden, he rolls in this formaldehyde tank with a human head inside of it. And he's like, 'This is my friend, Sleepy.'”

“When we play our last song, we don’t want to scream at the crowd. We want to feel a sense of unity with them.”

“Back in the day, I think it was on the Kerplunk Tour, we had a show booked in New Jersey. I remember arriving there and there were 1,100 people there, even though we’d never played New Jersey before. I was really surprised. That’s how we did it – we just toured a lot. People always ask us, ‘How did you make it?’ But we just spread the word little by little. We toured a lot, and toured a lot, and toured some more. We loved playing, so that gave us a positive attitude towards our work.”

“If there's one thing I can't understand, it's this habit of constantly taking videos and photos with cell phones everywhere. You're on stage and you only see phones. I always say, ‘Go on, take a few pictures and then put the damn thing away and let's finally dance and have fun.’ I mean – that's what we're here for!”

“Playing songs for people sends energy to the crowd. And then they send it right back to you, and it's a blast.”

“I think I’ll always have that teenage awkwardness – the most awkward guy in a crowded room of people. I’m pretty socially inept.”

“I get into Instagram, and the next thing I know, someone will say, it’s all about Snapchat now! It’s like, oh God, leave me in the Stone Age — I got one foot in the Stone Age and the millennium right now.”

“Our crowds can expect to get laid.”

“Britney Spears makes it cool for hot girls to marry double-divorcé dads of two like me.”

“You know what the best thing about San Francisco is? You can see Oakland from it.”

“Oakland is like the Detroit of San Francisco.”

“At one point, we were in Europe and we slept in this gal’s house. And upstairs, in a room, everyone’s piled in there, it was a small room and we were literally piled almost two high across the entire room. And her brother had shot himself in there. He was playing around, playing Russian roulette, joking around. And it was like, 'Go upstairs and sleep, just stay off the carpet.'”

“We have a completely mixed audience, all age groups, from teenagers to 60-year-olds. ”

“The sheer volume of 'blah blah' takes the wind out of the sails of real anger. It just gets lost when everyone says, 'I'm so angry!' Why are you angry because you were overlooked in the queue at McDonalds?!”

“Performers and artists kind of have a hole within themselves that they're constantly seeking to fill. They have a void in their lives. Of course, we all fill it with music. But for some people music isn't enough, or they don't think it's enough. And so they spiral downward. And sometimes they spiral all the way down.”

“It seemed like when the Starman left this Earth, all the mad men came in and started to destroy everything.”