A biography for Walter Beckerhasn’t been written yet.
“I guess actually playing on the records and touring is a great forced practice regimen for me. And you learn a lot playing with people.”
“You have a kid, and it's like, 'He's gotta go to college! Gotta have some clothes!'”
“Most of the time when people say something sounds like Steely Dan, and I listen to it, it doesn't. And I'm not even sure what they're talking about.”
“Our career had a sort of funny shape.”
“Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could be, much, much better than they are.”
“I think the audience for Limp Bizkit is probably not going to be particularly interested in what we're doing. I don't think they'll find much that satisfies them in what we do.”
“We are constantly competing with the monsters from the id.”
“I spent a couple of years not doing any music or anything, just here in Hawaii trying to get healthy and adjust to the new regimen I was setting up for myself.”
“It's a mystery to me why everybody doesn't love jazz. I've never been able to figure that out.”
“If any artist abuses his audience as a means to any end, noble or ignoble, he better have a damn good reason for it.”
“'8 Miles to Pancake Day' is a reconciliation of the classic space-time dilemma.”
“Going out and looking for managers is like going out and looking for rattlesnakes.”
“I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion.”
“What about that Dave Brubeck live album, with a version of 'Like Someone in Love' on it, and long sax solos by Paul Desmond? That's what got me hooked on jazz.”
“What gets people into trouble with records now is that they want to build something up without substantial musical ideas. Without that as a foundation, you can add all the layers of sound you want - it's still going to sound like a mess.”
“It was the 'Gaucho' album that finished us off. We had pursued an idea beyond the point where it was practical. That album took about two years, and we were working on it all of that time - all these endless tracking sessions involving different musicians. It took forever, and it was a very painful process.”
“In the '70s, my playing was completely untutored, but it sounded good to me, and I tried to find ways to make those very simple things work in more ambitious contexts.”
“I don't particularly like L.A.”
“When the first album came out and I heard 'Do It Again' on the radio, that was the greatest thing that had ever happened. After that, it was all downhill.”
“I think what television and video games do is reminiscent of drug addiction. There's a measure of reinforcement and a behavioural loop.”