The reason I don’t tour is that I don’t know how to front a band. What would I do? I can’t really play anything well enough to deal with that situation.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

If I weren’t performing, I’d be a beauty editor or a therapist. I love creativity, but I also love to help others. My mother was a hairstylist, and they listen to everyone’s problems – like a beauty therapist!

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

I really wanted to break the mold of what modern touring is right now.

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

At first, I wasn’t really keen on the idea of me being on stage having to sing in front of people.

I play a lot of instruments. I write all my own music. I spend hours and hours a day in the studio. I’m a producer. I’m a writer.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‚Are people interested?‘ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

All I do is make music.

I’m kind of claustrophobic… It’s not even like enclosed spaces. It’s like I hate being stuck in one band, you know? Just being stuck is the biggest drag, for fear that, you know, just that you can’t get out.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

I performed in a bowling alley before while people were still bowling. Cut the check, and I will perform anywhere.

Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

A lot of people can’t stand touring but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it.

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

Mick Fleetwood was one of my first interviews. And if you’ve ever talked to that dude, he’s the sweetest guy in the world – he’s just a trip.

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it’s a way to make a living.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

I just want to keep writing music.

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

I’ll be like Bob Hope, touring when I’m 100.

I’m not a very creative person, you know? I’m not really an art person. I’m not a great reader or writer or artist or musician.

I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.

In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

I love performing, you know, because, like I say, I’m a ham for this stuff.

I resent the implication that I’m less of a musician and a worse person for not appreciating certain works.

Touring is very routine. You get to the city, you go to the hotel, you got to be at the hotel by a certain time – it’s very routine. I’m not a very structured person, so when I get some structure, it’s cool; it’s good for me.

I get nervous when I don’t get nervous. If I’m nervous I know I’m going to have a good show.

Even though I’m known as a pop musician, I have a seriousness about what I do.

Having a simple career as a musician who liked music was good enough for me.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

I like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

I’d love it if everyone knew one Foo Fighters song.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

I’ve been doing comedy longer than I haven’t been doing comedy, as I was performing for three years before I even got on ‚The Tonight Show.‘ There’s truly nothing like it; it’s intense and exhilarating, even though it looks so casual.

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

The wage for most musicians is a modest amount, and that includes me some of the time.

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I’m invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who’ll play the piano after dinner, and I know you’re not really invited for yourself. You’re just an ornament.

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don’t understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

You know, my sister sings, my brother plays drums in my band. My whole family is a bunch of musicians.

I can’t act!

I just was never into performing. It’s just hard work. It’s hard work.

I’m gonna be making records anyway, even if I had to sell ‚em out of the trunk of my car. I’m that kind of musician and singer.

I still get very scared when I step in front of a live audience.

To not be modest about it, you’ll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I’ve worked with have done their best work by far with me.

I’m a singer, not a politician, and I think you don’t want the two to get confused. It’s not OK to be on CNN talking about people starving and then tell the interviewer that your new album is coming out in six months.

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing ‚Happy Birthday,‘ like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, ‚Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!‘