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Interview Archive

Archive interviews and features rescued from a recently discovered stash of dusty 3.5" floppy disks — featuring exclusive transcripts with some of rock music's most legendary artists including Metallica, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, The Rolling Stones, Big Country, Genesis, Yes, Coheed and Cambria and more.

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Interview Transcript — May 1999

Joe Elliott

Def Leppard

Joe Elliott portrait

Elliott

"Well you've got to be like that haven't you, otherwise there's not much fucking point in starting really. That's my theory. But yeah, when we were like 17, 18, 19 years old, we were saying 'We're going to be massive man'."

Interview Transcript — 1999

Rick Wakeman

Yes

Rick Wakeman portrait

Wakeman

"'Union' was a joke. 'Union' was not a Yes album. When they gave me my copy, I just put it on in the car, and I actually threw it out the window. I just think it is the most disgraceful thing ever. It was counteracted by the fact that the 'Union' tour was the best Yes tour ever."

Interview Transcript — 1999

Steve Howe

Yes / Asia

Steve Howe portrait

Howe

"Rick said some absolute bullshit about it. The opportunities and freedom that Rick was given on that record surpassed any other album that he had, but he didn't seem to want to rise to the occasion. We enchanted him like a snake charmer and brought Rick out of his basket for that record. We inspired him. Jon filled him with potential of possibilities, and all he can ever do is slag it."

Interview Transcript — 1999

Michael Kamen

Composer & Conductor

Michael Kamen portrait

Kamen

"Roger was on a power rush and he was entitled to it, I mean he was strutting his stuff and dancing on Hitler's bunker. So fuck me, if that doesn't deserve a little gloating. We were all gloating and Roger was the one who was actually doing it, so more power to him."

Interview Transcript — 1999

Robert Palmer

Solo Artist

Robert Palmer portrait

Palmer

"I was so disappointed. The thing was that in the long run, I couldn't take it seriously, because everyone on the label suffered the same fate."

Interview Transcript — 27 May 2000

Stuart Adamson

BIG COUNTRY

Stuart Adamson portrait

Adamson

"I'd rather be available for people that I care about, than have to be constantly making excuses and missing out on a bunch of things. I mean I still fully intend to be involved in music. I still want to write, make records and play occasionally. But I just didn't want to do the big travelling thing any more. I've done that since I was nineteen years old."

Interview Transcript — 14 January 2000

Nikki Sixx

MOTLEY CRUE

Nikki Sixx portrait

Sixx

"I think that we are the meat and potatoes of the music industry. An industry that is often about champagne and caviar - which I think is good too - but I think that we are like the trailer park trash of America and it is needed. All the critics are like 'Pearl Jam write about saving trees and Motley Crue write about jerking off on sixteen year old girls titties.' And we are like well that is more important than saving a tree. It really is. There is just no way around it. If everyone is saving fucking trees, then we are going to die of boredom out here."

Interview Transcript — 20 December 2003

Kirk Hammett

METALLICA

Kirk Hammett portrait

Hammett

"Enter Sandman changed our lives. It was a huge single that turned everyone on to the album. The black album sold umpteen millions of copies and turned us into the band we are today. It was the beginning of a major shift in our career."

Interview Transcript — 30 July 1999

Jon Anderson

YES

Jon Anderson portrait

Anderson

"I think we proved ourselves to be right 25 years later and that it is a valid piece of music. It isn't perfect by a long way, but it isn't that bad you know."

Interview Transcript — 1999

Francis Rossi & Rick Parfitt

STATUS QUO

Francis Rossi & Rick Parfitt portrait

Parfitt

"I have wanted to do this since I was ten years old, and I ain't going to let a quadruple heart bypass stop me. If I die, I'd love to die doing what I do, rather than not doing it. Die the rock n roll death on stage- just drop!"

Interview Transcript — 15 July 2002

Peter Hammill

Van der Graaf Generator

Peter Hammill portrait

Hammill

"Often solo careers used to begin because the singer or guitarist was feeling stifled in his ego by being in the group and wanted to show that it was really him who was the genius behind the group! A thing that still continues. In our case that was an identity that was distinctly VDGG and some stuff didn't fit into that environment, so it wasn't a problem for anyone that there should be something else."

Interview Transcript — 28 October 2000

Mike Rutherford

Genesis

Mike Rutherford portrait

Rutherford

“It’s a bit like flared trousers from the seventies. They didn’t last very well. In a sense we were always trying to be something that you hadn’t heard before and sometimes it didn’t work. If you try and be brave, when things didn’t work it’s really not great.”

Interview Transcript — 28 October 2010

Tony Banks

Genesis

Tony Banks portrait

Banks

"I just always describe it as being mothballed. I think it’s very likely we won’t do anything else, but I never say never because I don’t see the point."

Interview Transcript — 10 February 2010

Claudio Sanchez

Coheed and Cambria

Claudio Sanchez portrait

Sanchez

"Things had started to fall apart. The stresses of touring and the changes in people's lives got to them. I always grew up with chemical dependencies. Not personally but in my family. At one point, I thought that that part of my life was behind me and never thinking that we could suddenly fall victim to that."

Interview Transcript — 10 March 2000

Bill Wyman

Rolling Stones

Bill Wyman portrait

Wyman

“That’s why I always stood in the back in the shadows and Charlie Watts is the same. We’d rather just do it for ourselves, for what it does for us, and what it does for other people. You don’t get off on it in some glorified way and feeling like an icon or a god. People try to put you in that position but I don’t like it and Charlie doesn’t, so you shy away from it. You just try to just do it and then try to get back to normality, whereas it affects other people - not only in our band - but in many bands where they have to have that kind of adulation in their lives. I don’t and that’s why I left and part of why I left and I don’t have it now even you know when I go out with the Rhythm Kings. I still stand back there and just play bass.”

Interview Transcript — April 2004

Kevin DuBrow

Quiet Riot

Kevin DuBrow portrait

DuBrow

“I also think that the internet has created a haven in a lot of situations, a lot of instances for losers who have nothing to do, but surf between a rock site to criticize me and to go to a porn site and masturbate. This is really the lifestyle of a lot of people. I can just picture them out there, with a jar of lotion in one hand and a middle finger up to my picture in another hand. If that's their life, that's fine.”

Interview Transcript — July 2015

Geoff Tate

Queensrÿche

Geoff Tate portrait

Tate

“Yeah it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you look at it. You’re going to fire the guy that wrote all of the stuff? It’s kind of a suicidal thing to do. I didn’t understand it at the time and I still don’t. I know that it definitely wasn’t creative differences that broke the band apart. It was all a monetary thing and that is even more disappointing to me. I can understand creative differences because we don’t all see things the same way.”

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