A friend of mine took me to Memphis advised me that I should get in the musicians' union. He gave me a set of drums and said, Stay on the job, son.
A piano, the mother of instruments, is beautiful and warm, but it doesn't have that particular ring that I'm talking about-the heartstrings.
Anytime I switch to another instrument, I immediately turn it into another kind of drum so that I can understand it better.
By the time The Band did The Last Waltz, the chemistry had changed, and it wasn't a thrill anymore to live that studio kind of life.
Conway Twitty was always our local hero while I was growing up. He had a series of good bands. I wanted to sit in, if Conway would let me. And he did a couple of times.
Dad and mom would have preferred that I be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, or a great humanitarian.
Don't we all want what's best for each other?
Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.
Drums usually seem to tune themselves.
Forever Young, by Dylan, is one of my favorite songs.
Good times don't last long sometimes.
I don't fool with a lot of things that I can't have fun with. There's not much reward in that.
I had the opportunity to see some of the traveling minstrel shows years ago, with the house band, the chorus line, the comedians and singers.
I like to get within handshaking distance of the crowd. If it happens, they know it, we know it, and that's all we came here for.
I like walking on the edge.
I love horns, and the bigger the band, the better it sounds to my ear.
I never subscribe to the stay-at-home policy. I'm not sick of the road or sick of eating in good restaurants around the country. I like to travel.
I played some Yamaha drums that I like a lot. And I like the Yamaha people a lot too. They've been really nice to me and The Band.
I remember our Rock of Ages album. That was a good night. The album was live. I was having so much fun.
I shied away from engineering, you might say.
I stayed in Memphis when the show moved to Sydney, Melbourne and London. I just didn't want to go. We had played the American part, and that part was pretty good.
I think all musicians want that advantage of being able to listen to themselves. You've got the chance to hear yourself. Then you can correct some of your mistakes.
I told people that from here on out in my life I'm not going to do a damn thing that I don't want to do, unless I just have to.
I used to sing more when I played guitar than when I played drums.
I was in high school, trying to get out of high school. The only thing slowing me up was grades.
I was into B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and I felt Ray Charles had the best band.
I was just as happy as anybody else to turn a new page and start out on some new projects.
I wish I could play like I've heard some of the great studio musicians play over the years, but I just get so carried away.
I've always thought that one had a bit of an advantage being in the percussion department, particularly playing drums.
I've had all the lessons I could get. I've learned from everybody I've ever met.
I've never been in demand for sessions. I'm one of those slow learners.
I've never been involved in any overdubs and all that. I can rarely get it right all the time, all the way. Usually I'll have a brief little stumbling spot in there.
I've tried to tune tom-toms to certain notes. I've had a little success with it, but nothing really to speak of.
If things are going slow, I'm itchy.
If you feel like you're getting into a rut with a song, a night off usually fixes it.
If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.
If you pour some music on whatever's wrong, it'll sure help out.
It is fun to play mandolin on a song and be a part of the rhythm section from that formation. The different textures make for different rhythm sections.
It seemed like a lot of music was going on right there with Sonny Boy Williamson down at the radio station in Helena.
It was always sort of a democratic group. We would always share the money.
It's been straight up and down for me. I've just had the opportunity to do more.
It's from being born in Helena, Arkansas. That's a pretty basic part of America where there's a lot of good basic music.
Lord, when the song wants to pick up and go a little faster towards the end, it's hard for me to resist.
Most of our stuff was trial and error. You live with a tape recorder, you turn it on, you play the song and you listen to it.
My dad and I played music. He teaches me a song or two every time I'm home.
My mom's got a good alto voice. We always enjoyed music, but it never did fascinate them like it did me.
People have always asked when The Band would get back together. If Garth says yes, we will. Garth is the key.
People would come and go, and the only thing you could really work towards was some sort of a consistency and quality of musicianship.
Some people can hear certain players and know where they are from by the way they play.
The Band never really played big concert tours. We never sold millions and millions of albums.
The Band tried mixing some records on our own. Everything we mixed sounded good in the studio, but we'd take it home and we couldn't hardly hear it over our speakers.
The chemistry has to be right. I don't know how all that stuff happens, but you need to keep a good perspective.
The crowd is just as important as the group. It takes everything to make it work.
The Jungle Bush Beaters didn't last too long as a group, but we had a pretty good time while we did.
The rock star stuff never came up for us. The Band was never attacked by groupies before, during or after any show that we ever played.
The way to do it is to put as much life into the song as I can. You can either get it to breathe or you can't.
There were no rules, other than that the song should sound good and be fun to play.
There weren't a lot of drummers around at the time, so I kind of got in there.
Times change, people change, and music changes a little. People's ears change. We just continued along.
We all love musical architecture; there's no doubt about that.
We did a little trick once, singing through a hose. That's kind of interesting.
We didn't care about who did the song, what instrument we played, or anything like that.
We're all dealt with the same hand here, so to speak. I feel like I've had it a lot better than most people. I've had the opportunity to travel and play music all my life.
Well, somebody's got to sing. They won't hire you unless you sing.
When the second record came out, they started calling it The Band. I voted to call it The Crackers. I'm no fool.
When you can sing a song rhythmically, right in there with the main pulse, it's a lot of fun. I can just raise hell with it.
With horns and a full rhythm section, the drums always looked like the best seat in the house.
You can either make it come around or you can't. By the time we would be ready to record a song, we would know for sure that it was the best way we could do it.
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