A biography for Rick Nielsenhasn’t been written yet.
“The only time I have a problem is when I have to get in a vehicle after we play and sit there in a cramped position for a couple of hours to drive to the next place. Then I get super stiff.”
“Some people design buildings and aircraft carriers and cars - and I designed picks.”
“I can't stand it when groups come back for an encore, and they play some slow thing. Oh, brother! It's like, 'Had I known that, I would've left.'”
“If you're going to be ridiculous, be over-the-top ridiculous.”
“I just wanted to write about stuff that was happening in real life, and that's not just love songs about your girlfriend.”
“Living someplace like L.A. seemed awful to me.”
“Every other year, I spend Thanksgiving in England with Dave Clark from the Dave Clark Five and a bunch of other people.”
“The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - those guys were great.”
“I don't like the term 'rock star.'”
“The way I look at it, I'm a songwriter that just happens to play guitar.”
“I always thought of myself as more of a rhythm player than a big soloist.”
“Look at Bob Dylan: his voice is not a great sound, but it gets the idea across... and that is what's really important.”
“When I write songs, it's just me and a cassette player - or at least it used to be before smartphones - to quickly record a basic idea.”
“There's no way we could make up what we are. The group is just what everyone is. Each of us has a different audience.”
“When we toured with AC/DC, we always had to bring our A game. They really felt like our equals.”
“I don't always feel like a million dollars, but I try not to let anybody know.”
“Hendrix was a different kind of guitar player. It was like, 'Holy cow, this guy can sing, he can play all this weird stuff... what is this?' It was a new kind of music.”
“Duane Eddy is somebody I wanted to play like. I discovered him before The Beatles, and he totally got to me. He sent me a note back in 1977 and said that he really liked what Cheap Trick were doing. That's one of those 'Wow!' moments, you know?”
“If we waited for a hit record to tour, we would never have toured.”
“Some people collect this or that. I'm a musician; I collect guitars.”