David Bryan Quotes

A lot of my friends are doctors, and the difference between me and them is there’s no musical emergencies to pull me away from dinner. ‘I need the chords for that song right now!’ No, it can wait.

Why would we want to do an experimental album? That’s just selfish.

Most of Broadway is based on a movie or a book. You don’t see many original musicals.

We never do the same set twice.

People ask me, ‘Is there pressure to win a Tony for your next one?’ I’ve got three on my mantelpiece; I’m good. If that’s the end of the story, I’m fine.

In rock n’ roll, there are notes that aren’t like notes. They’re something in between, and it’s the way you scoop into it.

I’ve been through a lot of experiences in my life being in the biggest band in the world.

We’ve always been just an American rock n’ roll band.

It’s so much fun to be on stage and play. It really is.

We keep trying to get better – constantly working at it. We love to tour. I love to play in front of people. You sit there, and everybody’s smiling, and you’re smiling. It’s a good time.

We’ve always been a band of the people, and we will always remain a band of the people.

It’s funny – Americans are the colonials who ran away from the royals, and yet we’re fascinated by them.

A musical is really one of the most complicated beasts. It’s a play, and there’s music… and there’s dancing… it’s unbelievably satisfying to get something up out of your brain onto a piece of paper … and start the process and then see it on the stage.

It’s really fun to just stretch out and not have any boundaries or just try something for the craft.

I’m a good Jewish boy from Edison, New Jersey, so I went and saw ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ because you have to: that’s part of your bar mitzvah experience.

When I was growing up, I had more comedy albums than musical ones. George Carlin, Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor – those were my main men.

Before ‘Memphis,’ I had never considered working on a musical. But when Joe DiPietro sent me the script, I heard the entire score in my head.

I just wanted to release an album of piano music for music’s sake. I’m not expecting to sell millions of albums. It’s was just nice to be able to sit down at an acoustic piano and make some music.

We play anywhere around two, 2 hours, so we’re always in shape, but you’ve got to get yourself in super shape so you can sing that long, play that long, and feel strong.

In times of joy and sorrow, love or hate, peace and unrest, music has always been an important outlet for expressing our emotions individually and as a nation.

When you’re on tour with the band, it’s a different mentality. You don’t sightsee because you’re making sure you can do the show. But in musicals, I don’t have to sing or play: I just have to use my brain, and the rest of the time, I’m free.

I love the Memphis sound. When I was 16-and-a-half, with my driver’s permit, I was playing New Jersey clubs in a 10-piece band; we had a horn section and would play great, great songs like ‘Hold On! I’m Comin” and ‘Knock on Wood’ and ‘Midnight Hour.’

I just write the way I feel, and if it feels good to me, hopefully everybody likes it.

I love my band. I love to play. I love to write.

We would say we would play every pay toilet and use our own change. Across America and across the world, we just kept going and going.

When I’m writing Broadway, it’s for a character, a man, a woman, an old guy, a kid. In the band, you’re talking in your own voice in the lyrics, saying what you think or feel. On Broadway, you’re expressing that through a character.

I went to Temple Emanu-El, and my rabbi, Rabbi Landsberg, was a huge influence on me. When I was 7 and went to kindergarten, there he was, a young rabbi who didn’t wear a yarmulke and rode a motorcycle.

I grew up as one of the few Jews in Edison, and I had people tell me they hated me because of my religion.

I remember that poster of Led Zeppelin with the plane. I had it on my wall when I was a kid. I thought that was the coolest. It amazes me that it came true.

My father was a very big musical influence on me. He was a trumpet player. And that’s what I started with. Then, when I was 7, my parents introduced me to the piano.

I’m in a very successful band. We all love each other. It ain’t ever breaking up. I also have a terrific hobby that became a full-time job. My only problem? There’s not enough time to sleep in my world.

I think growing up in the shadow of New York shaped me for life. Hey, you come from Jersey, you get used to being dumped on by the big city.

You start out with your eyes wide open, and you’ve got dreams, and we worked really, really hard, and ours came true. So – and we’re fortunate enough to keep putting out number one records, and we’re fortunate enough to get out there and keep playing, and we truly have a blast.

I guess, for me, the therapy is walking on stage, playing all of our songs, and walking out. That’s probably my therapy. That’s a good time.

We’ve been here since 1983 as a band.

When I’m playing in the band, I’m sweating – giving 120 percent.

Some I want to see just for curiosity. But no, I don’t really rush out to see a bunch of musicals.

There’s no glamour in stupid mistakes.

We really earned our keep by going door to door, going to every town, playing in every club.

Musicals weren’t on my radar.

My muse has always been the piano.

Every time we do a new record, we do the best we can. For us, every record is stepping into the ring with another heavyweight champion.

I’m not a guy who grew up in theater. I’ve always played in rock bands.

We don’t want to just be known for what we did. We want to be known for what we do and what we did. We’ve been highly productive since 2000 when ‘Crush’ came out.

I’d say that 98 percent of the bands we’ve played with through the years have either broken up or are stuck in some kind of ’80s revival now.

Glass and wearable technology is an example of another step in consumer-facing innovation that will change how we share the music experience with our fans in the future.

Everybody in the world has problems, and the nice thing about entertainment is you get to forget about those problems and have a good time for a couple of hours.

I’m going to stop when I’m 100. I put a limit on myself.

We love to make records, and we love to tour.

I’ve been playing piano since I was 7. I took 15 years of lessons. I’ve got a lot of miles on these hands.