I feel like my strength is surrounding myself with people who have an ear for things, and then they play it for me. I’m always looking; my ear is always open. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
I just looked like there was only one thing I could do: be in a band. It looked like I was already successful, basically. Which is what I wanted to do when I was 16. I just felt like if you did that, aesthetically you would just draw people who were doing the same thing. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
Rock and roll’s relatively new, in the sense of the Fifties, Sixties, right? They invented the first sort of rock stars, and they took it to excess, and then the excess became bitter, tormented. Then it became okay to succeed. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
I would like to leave the world a better place than when I entered it. I would hope that by the time I die I could have learned from the years of living and hand something down. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
Things that excite me are these four different bands: Wire, with a song called ‘Champs,’ Misfits, with a song called ‘Hybrid Moments,’ R. Stevie Moore, and Wipers ‘Wait A Minute.’ – Albert Hammond, Jr.
When they write a bad review, and you agree with it, that’s the worst feeling. When you know you’ve done what you wanted and the best you could and you love the outcome, then you look at everything differently. Not everyone’s going to love everything you do. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
I feel like you listen your whole life, so when you are in the studio, your references are all the songs and music that you know. It just depends on where the songs are going and what attracts you at the moment. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
When you get together in a group, it becomes like a family, with the different personalities and the politics that comes with being in a band. It’s different than bringing something in by yourself. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
I do believe in ‘forever’ in terms of relationships. There’s something really amazing about being with someone for a long time and really knowing each other in that way. They end up becoming your closest friend. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
I like rock music that has melody, but it also makes you wanna get up and dance. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
Egon Schiele is my favorite painter. There’s just something about art – photography, painting, music, plays – whatever you see, sometimes there’s a gut reaction that’s more important or more visceral than what your brain is thinking about. You can’t explain that reaction. It’s like what happens when you fall in love. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
In terms of growing as a songwriter, I’m just a guy who understands the craft better. I understand what I want to do with it. I think that’s where I’ve grown. Have I fully achieved that? No, but I don’t think you ever do. There’s always room to grow. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
When people ask me for playlists, I always put in ‘Moonlight Sonata’ because it is my favorite song. I play it all the time. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
If I have an audience, I’d like to make music for my whole life. But it’s not really up to me. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
I feel like I always describe myself as a late bloomer. My first album, in my mind, was that I had a few songs I needed to take from incomplete demos to working with someone else and finishing them. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
My idea was you can’t dress for the stage, you have to dress all the time like you’re onstage. And so I would just always wear suits or some form of it. I wanted people to know I played music. That was kind of how you would find other people: you would just walk around looking a certain way and end up meeting someone who liked the way you look. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
I think the last book I cried in was Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids.’ I don’t shy away from crying, though. I actually really enjoy being moved like that. – Albert Hammond, Jr.
There are different people who got me into music, but what I liked about Beethoven is that even when I didn’t understand it or it was too long, there’s still something about it that drove me to it. Then it got me excited about actually learning music, like a theory of it. – Albert Hammond, Jr.