Top 45 Solos Quotes

Every time I listen back to solos of mine I’ll hear something I like and then another phrase that I can’t stand. You have to live with what you play. And the recording medium puts that on us. When I play live gigs I don’t think so much like that.

I was learning guitar as the band was beginning, at least in terms of being a lead guitar player. I could write songs, but I couldn’t really play solos.

I’m not into solos, I’m into lyrics.

It really shocked me just to hear of the fans’ response to ‘St. Anger’ not having guitar solos.

New Orleans cats don’t play a lot of solos unless they got something to say. It’s not an ego thing like it is with some other musicians. You say what you gotta say and then shut up.

Like, even going to Duke Ellington School of the Arts, like, they slept on me. I think they thought I was talented, but for whatever reason, they didn’t want to give me a lot of solos or any type of just love like that. But I don’t know. I think that’s what encouraged me to grind so hard.

In the ’90s, guitar solos were dead.

I love classical music; I love the way it’s worked… all those chord sequences so I often use that sort of effect in my solos.

Hip-hop and jazz have always been intertwined. Even the G-funk thing. You listen to ‘The Chronic,’ there’s flute solos and everything. It’s always been there.

Your solos should be as interesting as any other part of the song.

The only thing I don’t write is the guitar solos, but even then I might suggest one or two things.

I didn’t want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.

I’m sure if Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be doing classic guitar solos on YouTube.

From a technical viewpoint, I have certain things I’d like to present in my solos. To do this, I have to get the right material. It has to swing, and it has to be varied.

That’s the exact concept behind the music: to take that kind of, I guess whatever you want to call it, jazz sensibility – but not have it be about solos.

All of my solos were improvised initially – I would go in and get my bearings and see what I came up with.

Everyone knows deep in their hearts that the drums are the coolest instrument, and that a band is only as good as its drummer. So I’m all for drum solos. I’m all for drummers hamming it up. I’m all for drummers standing up and kicking over the kit.

I love my climbing shoes. Virtually all of my big solos have been in the TC Pros. They are the most important thing when I’m soloing.

All of my solos are blues based. Even though a lot of my songs get into pop, I wind up going back to the blues. Trying to escape it is like trying to run from the devil.

I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that it’s extremely predictable, it’s a rock rhythm and the solos all play the same stuff and they play it over and over again and there’s a certain musical virtuosity involved in it.

We’re losing the whole point: music is not to impress people, music has to stand up on its own and guitar solos are nothing to do with it.

I used to hear all these guys on 78s at my mother’s when I was a teenager… I used to daydream that I was onstage playing the solos; I’m playing with B.B. King, and I’m playing with Lowell Fulsom, Jimmy McCracklin. And I literally ended up being in a band that backed them up at different clubs.

Everything from the lyrics to the production, solos to the writing – it’s all democratic. At the end of the day, you know, when you’re all done with the grind – which it is always an incredible grind for us to write records – I think it makes it that much more special to hear the final product.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

I’ve never been a huge fan of drum solos.

And I’ve also come to the conclusion that, as far as guitar solos and things like that are concerned, it’s more important to complement the music rather than take away from it.

What about that Dave Brubeck live album, with a version of ‘Like Someone in Love’ on it, and long sax solos by Paul Desmond? That’s what got me hooked on jazz.

We think the juxtaposition between banjo solos and songs about the future are really funny.

I’m not technical. When I listen to music, I gravitate more toward the sonic aspect of it. The technical stuff of it, I get bored with it. These long solos? OK, already. You know your scales, big deal. I know it, too, but I don’t want to do that.

I love extended solos. I used to like them in the old days a lot, because it used to give me time to go to the pub for a drink.

I try to look at most of my solos as a musical piece within the song, not, say, showing off.

My solos are more tastefully conceived now. But I still get going in places. It’s just that I build up to it now. I don’t race off on a solo. I take my time.

When you play a gig in Poland or Australia, or you play a gig in Toledo, they all clap at the same parts of the show. They’re clapping for the solos in the exact same way.

‘Even Flow’ is the best to play live because of the long solos. It starts out slow and builds, and, depending on what the audience does, I can reflect that in the solo.

Steve Van Zandt, the poor guy, doesn’t get to play enough as it is with me hogging a lot of the solos. Steve has always been a fabulous guitarist. Back from the day when we were both teenagers together, he led his band and played lead and was always a hot guitar player.

A guitar solo in the same part of every tune – that’s been done so much. I think solos shine more when you have them in specific and unexpected places.

Every girl is a singer. I wanted to learn the solos and play lead guitar. I would meticulously teach myself solos so when dudes were like, ‘Oh, you’re a girl, you can’t play guitar,’ I could rip these insane Telecaster blues solos and tell them, ‘Yeah, I can burn up a fret board.’

It’s a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can’t do.

It’s quite similar to guitar solos, only with programming you have to use your brain. The most important thing is that it should have some emotional effect on me, rather than just, ‘Oh, that’s really clever.’

World Play is very ’70s arena rock, very raw and in your face, and that’s what we wanted. We recorded it in a very off-the-cuff manner and didn’t really plan out how we were going to play. My solos are first takes.

I don’t regard myself as a soloist. It’s a color; I put it in for excitement. It’s not great loss if a solo has to go. We’ve made songs without solos.

There’s no doubt that prog rock has an image problem: many musicians hate the label, and too many people associate it with 10-minute drum solos and the weirder bits of JRR Tolkien.

It wasn’t a class system where I was the better guy and he was the second-rate guy. That was his role and my role was to play the solos. But he took great pride in his technique as a rhythm guitarist.

When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn’t play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs.

I’d be very honored to be the ambassador to drum solos.