Quotes from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991

Michael Azerrad ·  522 pages

Rating: (11.4K votes)


“Rock'n'roll is a teenage sport, meant to be played by teenagers of all ages--they could be 15, 25 or 35. It all boils down to whether they've got the love in their hearts, that beautiful teenage spirit... -Calvin Johnson”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“Los Angeles wasn’t a sun-splashed utopia anymore—it was an alienated, smog-choked sprawl rife with racial and class tensions, recession, and stifling boredom.”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“Music can inspire people to wake up and say, ‘Somebody’s lying.’ This is the point I’d like to make with my music,” Watt told Rolling Stone in 1985. “Make you think about what’s expected of you, of your friends. What’s expected of you by your boss. Challenge those expectations. And your own expectations. Man, you should challenge your own ideas about the world every day.”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“Boon and Watt had the bad—or perhaps good—fortune to come of age during one of rock’s most abject periods. “That Seventies stuff, the Journey, Boston, Foreigner stuff, it was lame,” Watt says. “If it weren’t for those type of bands we never would have had the nerve to be a band. But I guess you need bad things to make good things. It’s like with farming—if you want to grow a good crop, you need a lot of manure.”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“I’m not religious about God,” Boon agreed, “I’m religious about Man.” “We believe in average guys,” said Watt. “What happens is, the system makes them all fuckheads.” “And I want to try to snap them out of that,” said Boon. “That’s why I write these songs, OK?”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991



About the author

Michael Azerrad
Born place: The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“If someone blames you directly, do not believe it. Just know that they are taking away your bad karma and let it”
― Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, quote from Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000


“Yeah, beware the small man... Always beware the small man. He'll fuck you every time. Because they never forget, do they? All that grief they got at school. Over and over, and for the rest of their miserable short-arsed lives, someone's got to pay.”
― John Niven, quote from Kill Your Friends


“being alone is not the same as being lonely?”
― Garth Stein, quote from Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog


“His lips graze my ear and it's like fireflies are buzzing around my heart.”
― Steven dos Santos, quote from The Culling


“Survival is the biggest dharma. The scriptures say, nothing is a sin during danger. It is called apat dharma. Think and you will find a way out.”
― Anand Neelakantan, quote from Ajaya: Roll of the Dice


Interesting books

Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo
(2.3K)
Babylon's Ark: The I...
by Lawrence Anthony
Twice Born
(3.9K)
Twice Born
by Margaret Mazzantini
The Death of the Heart
(5.3K)
The Death of the Hea...
by Elizabeth Bowen
Asking For It
(9.8K)
Asking For It
by Louise O'Neill
School's Out - Forever
(103.6K)
School's Out - Forev...
by James Patterson
Fractured
(10.6K)
Fractured
by Dani Atkins

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.