There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that’s what was in our head for ‚Get On Your Boots.‘ But actually, the song is much more punk rock.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.

I dropped out of high school and I couldn’t go to college ‚cause I wasn’t smart enough, so I’d resigned myself to loading trucks and playing punk rock on the weekends.

‚Doo-wop‘ is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon.

Looking back on the production of ‚Nevermind,‘ I’m embarrassed by it now. It’s closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

You know, when Michael Jackson does the moonwalk, he’s showing off! When Prince or Hendrix do a guitar solo, it’s confidence! I would hate to be at a show and some nervous wreck is sweating up there and doesn’t feel like he deserves to be there.

Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.

Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‚nirvana‘ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

World belongs to humanity, not this leader, that leader or that king or prince or religious leader. World belongs to humanity.

I love artists like Prince, who hold on to that element of mystery.

My inspiration is R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Prince – for the vocals, anyway.

You know how you either grow up in a Michael Jackson house or a Prince house? For me it was Michael Jackson. I could never decide whether I wanted to be Michael Jackson or marry him.

Don’t you love it that Prince doesn’t use Twitter? Don’t you think he’s somewhere on a unicorn?

What I like about Elvis is the same thing I like about James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince. These guys, back in the day, there was no smoke and mirrors. It was just raw talent. They would step out onstage and command an audience. Talk about awesome.

Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.

I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle.

I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

The most propagandistic element of ‚Frozen‘ was the transformation of the prince at the beginning of the story, who was a perfectly good guy, into a villain with no character development whatsoever about three-quarters of the way to the ending.

For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.

I want to produce the music to a movie that I’m working on, like what Prince did with ‚Purple Rain.‘

Prince turned experimental music into pop music. ‚When Doves Cry,‘ the whole ‚Purple Rain‘ soundtrack – he was inspired by the Cocteau Twins and new wave pop and brought it into R&B when he first started, and then it became this cool, next-level, kind of hard-to-digest music. Which is what I felt ‚House of Balloons‘ was.

Image, lyrics, content, storytelling, cohesive body of work – that’s Prince to me.