Top 45 Ian Brown Quotes

I love karaoke – I usually do Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass,’ or ‘Try A Little Tenderness.’

Honestly, going solo is the second best thing that’s ever happened to me after my kids.

We wrote ‘Stellify’ for Rihanna, but as we got to the end of writing it, I thought, ‘You know what? I’m gonna keep this for myself. We’ll give her another one.’ She’d have probably sung it better, but it is too good for me not to do it.

Everything I’ve ever achieved, I’ve done on my terms.

People have to realise you don’t help African children singing along to 60-year-old men playing their tunes from 40 years ago.

I spent the summer of ’88 indoors, writing ‘Shoot You Down,’ ‘Bye Bye Badman,’ and ‘Don’t Stop.’

I went into jail with absolutely no respect whatsoever for authority, and I came out with even less.

Putting another human being above yourself isn’t healthy. I think it’s capitalistic.

Belief outweighs talent. Self-belief’s got me everything, self-belief.

I like a lot of that Chicago stuff, house music.

I started doing karate when I was 11.

I used to be one of those kids who couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

With the Roses, I knew we were great; I felt that we would achieve something. On my own, I had no idea.

I’ve never chatted up a girl in me life. I’ve always let girls come to me. I’ve never approached a girl to chat her up.

One person might perceive me as godlike, and the next might think I’m a northern thug. I don’t think I’ve done myself any favours… but I swear I’ve not had a proper fight since I was 14.

Northern soul was huge in Manchester in the ’70s and ’80s; I went to a lot of all-nighters.

Since we were kids, we grow up believing that astronauts are heroes – that to go up in a rocket is a heroic thing. These guys are bigger than movie stars. To me, it’s… all a well-dressed-up lie, basically. There’s billions spent on rockets up there, and there’s millions starving down here. It don’t make sense to me.

I’d love to see the world without liquor for a week.

I was skint, and I had to move back to my mum and dad’s house, back into the room I shared with my brother when I was a kid. I kept getting people on the streets telling me that they loved me; it didn’t mean anything to me because I was still borrowing tenners off my pensioner father to go and get some chicken.

When the ravens leave the Tower, England shall fall, they say. We want to be there shooting the ravens.

Every time I do interviews, they ask me about the same things – poverty, war, and the power of the church.

Getting a grey beard’s not cool.

The Beatles were great; we know that. But we were trying to do a new thing. Why do we need to recreate the Sixties?

I see The Stone Roses in ’89 as Technicolor: we were all about joy and possibilities of life.

Maybe if you see me begging on the streets, you might find me doing The Stone Roses the next day.

Even on songs we’ve got that are about a girl, there’s always something there that’s a call to insurrection.

When The Stone Roses first came out, the early reviews called me ‘simian.’ I had to look that up at the time.

I wasn’t on stage to be worshipped or for people to look up to me. I was with the crowd.

Hell is being stuck in a lift with Elton John and the Queen Mother.

I’d like to write songs for other people, see things from a different perspective. I’d like to watch things from the dugout instead of the pitch.

When I was 9, I was into T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and Alice Cooper. I knew The Beatles because my nan introduced me to them, but T. Rex was the first band I got into myself. I got ‘Metal Guru’ a few months after hearing ‘Children of the Revolution’ in Pwllheli in North Wales at a market.

I can’t think of anyone who’s reformed for art’s sake. That’s why the Roses will never reform.

We started out to finish groups like U2 – that was what it was all about.

I love harmonicas – old blues players like Sonny Boy Williamson.

People want to adulate people.

It is a fact that everyone’s got a limited run in music – but who’s to say how long that run lasts? I used to think that there would be no way I’d still be in music when I was 40. I used to think anyone who was 40 was an old man, and they probably shouldn’t be doing it anymore.

I actually was able to give up shopping in February ’99.

I don’t actually personally get off on guitar music.

I always loved Oasis because when they came out, they did express that they loved us, and they saw that we did it, and they thought they could do it, too.

We’re against hypocrisy, lies, bigotry, show business, insincerity, phonies, and fakers.

I like the fact that a group can become successful, and by way of what you are, you can show up all the other people who are around you.

Even me mum can’t tell me what to do.

I don’t like to play anywhere with a banner for Carlsberg or vodka or whatever. I’m not a drinker myself, and I don’t like feeling like I’m working for the liquor companies.

With the Stone Roses, I always thought we’d be successful because we had some great songs.

Oasis are okay, but they’re like The Sun: base.