Quote

When I think of 'influence', I think of 'influenza', like somebody's picked up a germ.

Tom Verlaine

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tom Verlaine
Age: 74
Born: 1949
Born: December 13
Guitarist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Morristown
NJ
Picked
Influence
Somebody
Think
Thinking
Like
Influenza
Germ
Germs

More quotes by Tom Verlaine

Image
I told somebody in Europe I was 43. I never tell my true age. It's ridiculous that people ask. The press doesn't deserve anything but lies.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I don't want any production credit. I think producers are overrated. They're for people who, first of all, don't know anything about music or arranging and have no ear for their own doings. They can't tell a good solo from a bad solo, stuff like that.
Tom Verlaine
Image
Well, I worked in a sheet metal factory once and scarred my wrist from the cuts. I found a sympathetic psychiatrist who told the draft board I was insane. We used the scars as proof of a suicide attempt.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I'm not even sure who my audience is.
Tom Verlaine
Image
Places like Belgium and the south of France, Sweden and Copenhagen are really alive. They really love rock 'n' roll, they really respond.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I don't think anybody thinks about their past much, unless they're in a mental institution.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I always thought I was commercial. I always thought I was writing hit singles. These days, whatever's on the radio is considered commercial. People like what's on the radio, whatever it is.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I always hated jazz guitar. I loved jazz saxophone but I hated jazz guitar. If I would buy an organ trio record I would make sure I'd buy one that did not have a guitar player on it. The sound was awful!
Tom Verlaine
Image
I don't think Marquee Moon was so good, y'know? Just another record. First records everybody likes a lot.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live. Unfortunately, its not the way the music business works. If you don't create some kind of public image, it gets created for you.
Tom Verlaine
Image
My non-career. My excuse for a career? Honestly, I never think about the word 'career.' I've had managers, the minute they say it to me, they look at me and just roll their eyes.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I really don't have that much interest in stardom.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I'm kind of proud of that little record! I mean I've heard about a million other records that have come out since then by all these groups around here and there and I really like 'Little Johnny Jewel'.
Tom Verlaine
Image
It's like first grade where you make all your mistakes and people see it and yet some people see that there's something there that's really valuable. That's the way it went for more than 2 years almost 3 years of playing.
Tom Verlaine
Image
Emily Dickinson has great sound and sense.
Tom Verlaine
Image
Style to me is incidental. The British are very adept at creating it for its own sake, but the best style is incidental. John Coltrane had a style but it was totally incidental to what he was.
Tom Verlaine
Image
I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live.
Tom Verlaine
Image
Boogie! I hate boogie, God, I mean, not the Chicago boogie like Willie Dixon or Howlin' Wolf, but all those awful white bands.
Tom Verlaine
Image
The first time I met Patti Smith was in a laundromat. We knew some of the same people, including Richard Hell.
Tom Verlaine
Image
The whole reputation of being a rock guitar player, I could really care less about it. Still, when I hear new groups today I do occasionally hear something where I think... ahh, I've heard that lick before.
Tom Verlaine