A biography for Paul Rodgershasn’t been written yet.
“When I was in my teen years and in my 20s and even 60s, it was okay to drop everything and disappear and become a road warrior for all those months. But after a while you get... y'know, one likes to have some home life.”
“My dad worked on the Middlesbrough docks.”
“I tend to want to form bands and then create new music within them. Queen was an exception, and we joined forces because it just seemed to work when we played together.”
“When you can touch the spirit, whatever that is, and when you can feel the love, and you can feel the song is cooking and it's in the pocket, you know, everybody knows that's the one that's grooving.”
“Otis Redding, his voice, there was something spiritual and unworldly and at the same time, very deeply connected with the human connection and the way one feels about life in general, love, life, and everything, really.”
“Music takes me where I go. I'm always open to wherever the journey will take me.”
“With any band, there's two sides - there's the image, and there's the music.”
“You go through periods of times where bands are calling the shots, and then sometimes, you've got the record companies calling the shots. I think it has to be a bit of both to make the thing work.”
“I saw The Jeff Beck Group at the Marquee Club in 1967, when he was with Rod Stewart, and holy smokes, they were amazing.”
“Only Freddie Mercury could do Freddie Mercury. He was absolutely brilliant - I loved him to pieces, and I had a great deal of respect for him.”
“I got the idea of meditation from The Beatles. It was a fad, but I've found it beneficial in my crazy life.”
“I like following whatever's right for me at any given time. I could have stayed with Free for 40 years, but it becomes a corporate entity after a while, and once I become locked into it and governed by it and am expected to do a certain thing all of the time, I tend to want to move on.”
“There were personality clashes in Free, really. I think it's as simple as that; I think we felt we weren't leaving each other enough room to develop in our own way, and we were restricting each other. So we said, let's go different ways.”
“I honestly have really deep reservations about releasing everything you ever did. Every time somebody farted in the studio, now it's out there.”
“It's important to me to be able to hit the notes and just be able to fly when I sing.”
“Every day, every time I sing, I feel blessed, really, to be able to do that. It's like having wings, in a way. It's a bit like flying sometimes, because you go off into another realm. And a whole lot of people come with you. It's amazing.”
“Blues is such a dynamic and ever-changing system of music.”
“When Free came together, there was a creative magic around us, something unique and different.”
“If not for music in my life as a young person, who knows where I would have focused my energy.”
“The thing about simplicity is it's not easy to achieve. To many, simplicity can mean repetitiveness and maybe even a lack of intelligence, those kind of things, but simple yet unique is the key.”