Randy Bachman

“Burton Cummings joining the Guess Who in January 1966 changed my life forever. It's been a rocky affiliation, no doubt. One journalist once described our relationship as the longest running soap opera in Canadian history. That may be a bit oversimplified.”

“To add an AC outlet, for example, you just drill a circular hole in the wall, tap into the wiring, add the outlet and you're set. If you don't want it, pull it out and plaster over it with more earth to seal the hole.”

“When you play all that as a body of work there are four great songs, four mediocre songs and four bad songs. I didn't know it at the time; I was just doing my best.”

“I have chosen to keep my personal life separate from my music, as the two are exclusive from each other, and I want to remain that way. I'll talk music, production, writing songs, touring with anyone but keep religion, politics and world affairs off the table, as my expertise is in songs and music.”

“I remember having my father stand over me when I had driven over my own foot; one leg was out of the car and one leg was in the car. He looked at me and told me that I was a drunk and that he was ashamed to call me his son. That night, I stopped drinking and I never drank again; I was twenty four.”

“Generally, you are held to a sound and that becomes your sound. That gets branded as your sound, and all the copycats start with it because the labels are looking for that sound.”

“When one knows at an early age that their gift, talent and direction is musical, one tends to focus on that and let nothing interfere or impede the forward motion toward the end of that rainbow. And after 50-something years of rockin' out, you still realise there is no end to that distant rainbow until one's last sunset.”

“I think what made John Lennon so exciting as an artist is that, like Dylan and other musicians with a truly important musical legacy, he had several faces, personas that changed over time as he developed.”

“Those two songs condense the two albums. They also show what the audiences wanted. I was desperate to keep the band together and find something that the public would like.”

“You are still lucky - you have a certain type of people who keep buying your music - but then you can get typecast and have to keep making that same music, and you can change only slightly. It's risky to bounce around and change your type of music.”

“I started playing the violin when I was 5, but by the time I was 12 or 13, I wasn't really liking it.”

“I learned at an early age that I was given something special when I was born, and that was the gift of music.”

“I don't like the word 'rock star' or 'super star.' I am a guitar player, a songwriter who got lucky because I stayed at it and didn't give up, long enough that people noticed me.”

“Change is inevitable, and you can't stop that change. You say, 'Wait, stop,' and it just drives right over you.”

“With The Guess Who, it took us fifty-something singles before we had hits.”

“My songs are like cheap Neil Young copies.”

“The guitar is such an incredible instrument; it plays classical, flamenco, jazz, country, bluegrass, rock, acid, blues. You'll never see a clarinet playing Black Sabbath. But you will see a guitar in a clarinet band playing rhythm. It is the most popular instrument in the world; it is the one everybody loves.”

“You don't need a uniform color: We used a mixture of brick red, browns and grays, and then threw in seashells, branches and various types of rock, so our walls ended up looking like cave paintings!”

“There is a great book out called 'Everything I Needed to Learn I Learned in Kindergarten,' and I believe that everything I ever needed to learn on guitar was in my first two years of hungry learning: Scotty Moore, Hank Marvin, Chet Atkins, Lenny Breau, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.”