Marc Ribot Quotations

I've been using kind of a traditional metal guitar sound, a traditional hard-rock and metal guitar sound. That's what the trio thing is about.

It's not surprising that a composer learns in detail an instrument. That's not surprising. That should be the first thing a composer does.

It's not like rock was invented by people who were trying to show their great muscularity and how perfect and strong they could be.

The Beatles were a pop group, but when you actually listen to the tracks, they were very rude about the way they went about things.

Influence, people think about it as someone you like but influence is also what you're revolted by. In fact, often it's what you're running away from.

I'm not a really good classical guitarist by any means, but what I learned from this is a way of working very slowly on solo pieces and I enjoyed working on these pieces of John's. They were not written for solo guitar but a lot of them were easy to adapt.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

Influence people think about it as someone you like but influence is also what you're revolted by. In fact, often it's what you're running away from.

I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene.

I hate nostalgia, I want nothing to do with it.

Modern instruments were designed to throw sound all in one direction.

Avant-garde means never having to say you're sorry.

Good is the director who lets you do what you have to do.