Even though most rock ‘n’ roll stars are often too inebriated to talk, somehow, they’ve managed to collectively build up quite the catalogue of memorable quotations over the years. Be it under the influence of alcohol, drugs or stupidity, rockers demand to be heard and never refrain from speaking their mind, which is why we love them. We’ve collected 50 classic rock ‘n’ roll quotes, ranging from genuinely profound to thoroughly embarrassing. Enjoy.
Read the original list of 100 Most Outrageous Quotes in Music on ClashMusic HERE.
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1
“Rock and roll keeps you in a constant state of juvenile delinquency.”
Eddie Spaghetti – 2000
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2
“I’d rather be dead than cool.”
Kurt Cobain of Nirvana – 1992
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3
“Darling, my attitude is ‘fuck it’; I’m doing everything with everyone.”
Freddie Mercury – 1979
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4
“It’s boring to be 70, I don’t want to be there, I’ll be dead and gone, I don’t have any aspirations to be 70…”
Freddie Mercury – 1979
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5
“Society has traditionally always tried to find scapegoats for its problems. Well here I am.”
Marilyn Manson – 1996
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6
“They’d say “if ya play the record backwards, you can hear evil tings like grrrr!” and I would think, “Jeez, I didn’t know the devil sounded like that. I thought he was coherent, like the rest of us.”
Brian Johnson of AC/DC – 2001
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7
“Christians are a lot like dinosaurs – about to become extinct.”
Marilyn Manson – 1997
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8
“I could never quite understand cocaine, you can’t get a hard on, you can’t sleep and you grind your teeth, what the fuck is good about that?”
Jon Bon Jovi – 2000
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9
“My son Jack just got out of rehab, he’s 17 years old and he got hooked on Oxycontin and I’m just a little pissed off that he never gave me a few.”
Ozzy Osbourne – 2003
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10
“We believed that anything that was worth doing was worth overdoing.”
Steven Tyler – 1990
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11
“A kid once said to me “Do you get hangovers?” I said, “To get hangovers you have to stop drinking.”
Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister of Motorhead – 2006
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12
“I hate boys who are frightened of pee, shit and menstrual blood, who wants a boy who won’t kiss you when you’ve just been sick? I want a man who will let me pee in his belly button.”
Shirley Manson of Garbage – 1996
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13
“I wake up: I am mental, I got to bed and I am mental, I am mental within my dreams, I am mental within my normal state, I’m out of my mind.”
Joey Jordison of Slipknot – 2000
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14
“The only negative thing about murder is that when you kills someone they can no longer suffer”
Varg Vikernes of Mayhem – 1993
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15
“I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.”
Dave Lee Roth of Van Halen – 1979
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16
“Just because I cut the heads off dolls doesn’t mean I hate babies, I just hate dolls.”
Alice Cooper – 2003
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17
“Metallica fans sided with Napster because they’re lazy bastards and they want everything for free, I like playing music because it’s a good living and I get satisfaction from it but I can’t feed my family with satisfaction.”
James Hetfield of Metallica – 2001
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18
“I think record companies are criminals.”
Jon Bon Jovi – 2001
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19
“I love all women, I will never stop, I want every girl that ever lived. I fuck everything that moves and if it doesn’t move… we work something out.”
Gene Simmons of Kiss – 1998
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20
“I think they trivialize what we do and punk rock in general. It’s like throwing shit in the face of something or someone that had substance at one point.”
Mike Dirnt of Green Day on Blink-182 – 2001
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21
“I’m not God but if I were God, ¾ of you would be girls, and the rest would be pizza and beer.”
Axl Rose of Guns n Roses – 1989
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22
“I’m a family oriented guy; I’ve personally started four or five this year.“
David Lee Roth of Van Halen – 1982
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23
“I’m not a woman. I’m a force of nature.”
Courtney Love of Hole – 1998
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24
“If another cunt ever calls me the ‘firestarter’, I’ll stab him in the fucking throat.”
Keith Flint of The Prodigy – 2003
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25
“The only thing I use the Rolling Stone for is toilet paper when I run out.”
Neal Schon of Journey – 1982
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26
“Jazz, isn’t that just a series of mistakes diguised as musical composition?”
David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap – 1992
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27
“Some girl asked me for an autograph and I asked her why, she said because she admires me. I said she should see a shrink. Then she started crying and I started laughing.”
Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue’s – 2007
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28
“Keith Moon, God rest his soul, once drove his car through the glass doors of a hotel, driving all the way up to the reception desk, got out and asked for the key to his room.”
Pete Townshend of The Who- 2005
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29
“When I die, sprinkle my ashes over the 80’s.”
David Lee Roth of Van Halen – 2004
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30
“I was Marilyn Manson – times 10.”
Alice Cooper – 1997
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31
“What has drug addiction done for me? It’s cost me my career, my fortune and basically my sex life when I found out I was HIV positive…”
Robbin Crosby of Ratt – 2001
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32
“We can’t believe how many gays there are in heavy metal, people like…”
Biff Byford of Saxon – 1985
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33
“Rock and roll is a nuclear blast of reality in a mundane world where no-one is allowed to be magnificent.”
Kim Fowley, former manager of the Runaways – 2005
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34
“Rock n roll is about drugs.”
Marilyn Manson – 1998
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35
“I hope the guy who came up with the phrase ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ rots in hell, I’d like to change it so it makes more sense: ‘sex death and rock ‘n’ roll’”
Gene Simmons of Kiss – 1996
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36
“We’ve all got out self-destructive bad habits, the trick is to find four or five you personally like the best and just do those all the time.”
David Lee Roth of Van Halen – 1980
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37
“There was a time I thought I couldn’t enjoy rock ‘n’ roll unless I had heroin in me”
Joe Perry of Aerosmith – 1989
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38
“If you’re a gay person I’d rather not be stuck in a lift with you.”
Kerry King of Slayer – 2002
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39
“The ability for a woman to orally satisfy somebody in a rock band, that’s important to a rock ‘n’ roll musician.”
Chad Kroeger of Nickelback – 2006
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40
“We get paid in flesh. Our audiences are sluts and whores, each and every one.”
Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue – 1984
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41
“Kiss is like a smell in a paper bag, they just never go away”
Dee Snider of Twisted Sister – 2006
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42
“A missive to all you metal bands, the world is totally over the rock thing. Rock is deader than it’s ever been.”
Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins – 1996
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43
“Heavy metal drives me bonkers, it makes me want to vomit, heavy metal really is a pile of puke.”.
Ian Gillan of Deep Purple – 1987
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44
“One time we saw some hookers but when we got closer we realized it was Motley Crue.”
James Hetfield of Metallica – 1989
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45
“You hear about bands who say, “We did one show where only 20 people showed up”, well that was our average gig for five years.”
Dexter Holland of The Offspring – 1995
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46
“I’m down to a bottle of wine a day, but my hands still shake a bit.”
Pete Way of UFO – 2008
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47
“I love you all; I love you more than life itself, but you’re all fucking mad.”
Ozzy Osbourne to his family – 2002
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48
“It will be funny in about 10 years.”
Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister of Motorhead on the events of September 11th, 2001 – 2001
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49
“Anyone who thinks they’re happy should really see a doctor, because there is no reason to be happy.”
Marilyn Manson – 1998
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50
“Life sucks, but in a beautiful kind of way.”
Axl Rose of Guns ‘N’ Roses – 1998
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