John Densmore Quotes

When an ensemble is really tight or playing as one, it's a transcendental experience. It is spiritual. It goes beyond the ensemble. Ray and I and Robby and Jim were pretty tight, musically and spiritually.

Bass players and drummers are brothers in the basement cooking up the groove that makes people move.

I believe in the mystery, and I don't want to take it any further than that. Maybe what I mean by that is love.

Those who go ahead provide a little light into the unknown.

The first drum beat we all heard was our mother.

The more the ensemble, the duet or the forty piece orchestra, plays as one person, the more it makes people dance, because you're back in the womb. You feel mom's heartbeat. It makes you move. It reminds you of that warm, groovy space you were in.

In your twenties, everything makes you crazy.

I've been very blessed to make a living in stuff I love and am totally passionate about, music and writing. So I'm eager to see what the day will bring, how I will feed that passion.

I don't play just one-two-three-four. I try to play melodies.

I've been a longtime supporter of all sorts of environmental groups.

I was raised Catholic. I didn't appreciate the guilt and sin part of it.

If you're playing live, I like to think of the ensemble, whether it's the duet or a forty piece orchestra, as one person. And the entire audience, whether it's twelve people or twelve thousand at Madison Square Garden, is the other person. The two of you are going to dance together tonight.

Fortunately, an extremely sexy, pixie-voiced blond named Ronnie Harran, who booked the Whisky, saw us...She had an ear for talent...the Whisky was finally a gig we could be proud of.

Why is there such passion for any sort of gossipy, provocative sensual stuff? It sells!

When I wake up in the morning, I meditate immediately, before I even get out of bed.

Being in a band is like polygamy without the sex.

We have our own little heartbeat, too. We already have what I would call polyrhythms going on.

People forget that public people and celebrities, they too have to go to the bathroom and get divorced.

If an ensemble - I don't care if it's a duet or a forty-piece orchestra - the musicians, the two of them or the forty of them, are all trying to play as tight as possible, as one person. They're trying to play like they are one person.

Going first is courageous. I'm just talking on a spirit level now.