Over the course of 2012, I’ve written roughly 52 band profiles and album reviews — one for each week, give or take. Some weeks there have been two such features; some weeks none.
You write that much and you get some good quotes so what better way of reviewing the 2012 year in music in Sync than by rounding up 13 quotes from the year? In chronological order, here are some of the best music-related quotes from 2012:
Rwake’s Chris Terry on interviewing Hank Williams III for the Slow Southern Steel documentary, Jan. 25
“Movie aside, that’s one of the coolest things that I’ve done. It ended up in his basement with him playing personally to us the songs. I asked him to play a Hank Sr. song that ... he wouldn’t play for anyone else. He started through his notebook and was like, ‘Oh yeah, those are the chords.’ He just nailed it. It was amazing just to be able to do that.”
Vore bassist Jeremy “Skullcrusher” Partin on metal, Feb. 8
“Metal is a formidable art form. Done right, it can be extremely powerful, particularly in a live setting. It is also very innovative — continually evolving and trying to find new ways to be heavy. You don’t see that creativity as much in, say, country or the blues.”
Epiphany on the message of his Such Is Life album, Feb. 22
“For me, it is that in life we have extreme highs and extreme lows, and everything in between. Regardless, you got to keep moving. Whatever happens, Such Is Life. Not so much shrug your shoulders and move on; you got to progress and there is no standing still. You either go forward or you go back. If you standing still, you are going back. You keep moving on and doing the best you can. Such Is Life.”
Miranda Lambert on speaking her mind, April 11
“Well, being a born-and-bred Texan I guess I’ve just got that fiery personality as part of my heritage! I’ve learned to stand up for myself and not take any crap, so I suppose that self-assertiveness holds true on and off the stage.”
Ray Wylie Hubbard on inspiration, May 2
“You never know where inspiration is going to come from. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to never second-guess inspiration. You take it and write it and don’t edit it right then.”
Warren Haynes on what got him into music, May 23
“The first thing that hit me was the black gospel music on the radio when I was about 6 years old, and it made the hair on my arms stand up. I didn’t know why, but I knew something had changed, and I needed to investigate.”
Chris Robinson on the audience of the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Aug. 8
“We realize there are a lot of people in this world who don’t give a sh*t about The Voice or American Idol. They are not going to big stadium shows by country artists. There are a lot of other people who are less interested in the mainstream and find their way to stuff with a little deeper resonance. That’s cool. Those are the people who are usually the freaks and weirdos. [Laughs] That’s what attracted me to music in the first place growing up in Atlanta.”
Flameing Daeth Fearies’ Rusti Majere on the band’s sound, Sept. 5
“Music before comedy, I think, but we like to party, and we also like our tongue-in-cheek humor. We’re always poking fun at something. It’s almost like we are a viral YouTube video on stage. At least that’s what we try for, I think.”
Stella Luss’ Ashley Richardson on the end of Typhoid Mary, Sept. 12
“I was so tired of singing songs that were somebody else’s. They didn’t really matter. You can sing other people’s songs and it’s fine, and make your money and do your thing, but at a point you have to be like, ‘Okay, am I going to be an artist or am I going to mimic somebody else’s music?’”
Whale Fire’s John Steel on the band’s sound, Sept. 26
“It started out where we thought we were decent at writing melodies and stuff like that, but it was a little bit more raw. Now, we are more into soundscapes. I think we know how to get the sounds that we ... hear in our heads. We haven’t perfected that, but I feel like we have gotten much closer to getting to how we hear it in our head.”
JWhite on what got him into music, Oct. 17
“I saw how cool it was to be standing on stage and playing an instrument, and people feeling it so much. It made me realize that I wanted to do this for a living. I said, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off, but this would be something cool to do as an adult.’”
Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken on the future of the band, Nov. 14
“There’s a lot of excitement in the band about the next record as far the process and what everyone is most interested in right now. Just like Be the Void felt like one step in a new direction as far as a collaborative spirit that was brought to the table and enhanced greatly with Eric and Dimitri joining the band. Be the Void was our first album process with them, and it showed a lot of new opportunities and potential. Having done that, I think we realize we can stretch out even further. Working from the live band motif. There’s a new direction brewing.”
Frontier Circus’ Frontier Dan on the band’s sound, Dec. 5
“We’re just letting it go. I don’t think we are worried about crashing and burning. I think we are really interested in seeing what is going to happen. We really don’t know what’s going to happen though. Heck, just see what happens. I think it’s a lot of fun.”