David Johansen

“It's really a drag to do the same project over and over again.”

“Sometimes when I hear my voice on tape, I'm like, 'Who is that horrible man?'”

“I mean, if you asked me what I'm going to be doing when I'm 85, I'd make a quick picture in my mind and, well, I'll be singing.”

“We thought that's the way you were supposed to be if you were in a rock 'n' roll band. Flamboyant.”

“When I'm sleeping I do a lot of living.”

“I'm not impersonating anybody. I'm perfectly satisfied with what I am.”

“I'm compelled to paint nearly every day. I just felt like making a painting, went out and bought paints and a canvas. Now it fulfills me creatively when I'm not doing music: it's something you can do by yourself and it's totally yours. It's a great adjunct to my life.”

“You know, when you're making a record, you come up with 15, 20 songs. Then they start to fall by the wayside as your interest wanes. It's kind of like a process of elimination to determine which songs wind up on the record.”

“You know when you read that someone has to leave a show or a tour because they had 'nervous exhaustion'? Well, I had one of those and discovered that I was quite close to death. I always assumed that my lifestyle was going to take me at an early age, but when it was actually occurring I was, 'Not yet!' I pulled back.”

“As I recall, my life as a child was so all-consuming that I barely had time to consider the future.”

“Everything I've done I've just fallen into.”

“The first Latin music that blew my mind was bumba, which was a Puerto Rican beat.”