“Promoting unfortunately, these days, you know, it’s not like in the sixties when you used to walk into Capitol Records and you used to get a deal, you know, record deal. Those days are gone. You know? The record company is gone. It’s just so much. It’s all Internet work right now, artist by artist. We all have to, you know, write the music and then promote the music, And it’s, like, so crazy to do that, but, it takes it away from working with the music to concentrate on finishing music, and then you have to concentrate on calling or sending the song out to this and that. You know? So it’s really hard these days, but, we have to keep on playing that rock and roll, you know, whatever it takes. [What year did you start in music?] Oh, when I came from Italy, in the sixties.” — Tony Valentino (Lead Guitarist, Founding Member, The Standells)

“Most people that make surfboards, they don’t have any idea about aqua dynamics whatsoever. They just copy everybody’s stuff and say, I know what’s going on. But whereas I’ve done a lot of research in it and I’ve experimented and stuff, and I actually do scientific research on how to make them perform better. [And the way they look, you’re heavily influenced by race cars. Right?] Yes. I used to race cars and boats when I was young before I started making surfboards, and my boat held the world’s champion in the speed record.”
— Lance Collins (Founder of Wave Tools Surfboards)

“We have Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, it’s a really cool thing. You know, these people from all over the U.S. or world come and you know, I’m a counselor and we’re called, you know, the council. Then they have headliners, they call it. Like, the last one was Stewart Copeland and Robbie Krieger and Skunk Baxter, or they’re doing one pretty soon with Rob Halford and Alice Cooper. And what you do is, you know, you get a group of five people and you get them ready to jam, you know, with the rock stars, you know, or the A list, you know. So it’s kinda like, it’s an adventure.” — Tommy Black (General Manager, The Viper Room)

“It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? Like, we thought 50 was over the hill. And then, yeah, here we are still plugging away. And I guess it’s just the music must keep us alive, you know, for the next show.” — Al Jardine (Co-founder, Rhythm Guitarist, Vocalist of The Beach Boys)

“I went over to Brian's house and, talked to his mother about starting a band. So I was persistent. And the last thing Brian said to me a couple of weeks ago was he looked at me and he said, you started the you started the group.” — Al Jardine (Co-founder, Rhythm Guitarist, Vocalist of The Beach Boys)

“But now he’s real clear and is a practical joker. And he’ll I mean, he’s wait till you hear the album, the Love You album we’re recording right now for the tour that I’m taking his band out on. And we’re doing the quirkiest music ever written and some of the most beautiful, I might add, depending on how you look at it. It’s called the Beach Boys Love You album that we’re recording.” — Al Jardine (Co-founder, Rhythm Guitarist, Vocalist of The Beach Boys)

“Mike Love just came back from India with his, you know, Swami outfit on and his long red beard. And he was a little bit, shall we say, in his zone. And we went out on stage, and he got mad at Brian for something, oh, for not playing. Brian, sometimes, would get this glazed look on his face and just be thinking about something else, I guess. And Mike began to push the piano off stage. [Off stage?] Yeah, he decided to just push the piano off stage. Of course, he couldn’t do it because it was too heavy, but it was a little bit shocking. You know? Because you don’t see that too often. [How did Brian react?] He just sat there in his chair and watched.” — Al Jardine (Co-founder, Rhythm Guitarist, Vocalist of The Beach Boys)

“When I talk about the pet cemeteries, right, everyone thinks I’m gonna talk about cats and dogs, and it’s not. And that’s what’s beautiful about this, is the number of different animals people can bond with. So one day in this office in Maryland, these guys show up for work and there’s a fly buzzing around. They’re like, oh, damn it, there’s a fly. And this fly’s driving them crazy. It’s buzzing all around their office. And then they slowly kinda go this fly’s got this thing, you know? It’s got the it factor and they’re kinda like, hey, I kinda like this fly. Yeah. I like that fly too. Yeah. That’s a good fly. And they adopt this fly as their office pet, as their kind of mascot. And everybody in the office loves this fly. And then they find the fly dead one day and they’re mourning this fly, you know, an animal that we would overlook, an animal that to most people is just a nuisance. They had fallen in love with a fly. And then when it died, they took its little body and they had a little wake for it.” — Dr. Paul Koudounaris “Paul K” (Author, Photographer, Art Historian, Lecturer)

“And the first weekend we made it to London, we get a call saying that the boards never made it. So we’re kinda in scramble mode, trying to figure out what to do. And we start making calls to people and ended up finding this guy named Nick over in England who had two boards for us. And he ended up driving them out to us in London, which was like a six hour drive. And a huge shout out to him. If it wasn’t for him, we probably wouldn’t have made this thing possible.” — Stuart Jeremias & Spencer Wadsworth (England to France on Prone Paddleboards)

“We’re playing July 11 at the Garden Amphitheatre in Garden Grove, and we have a great set for everybody. We’re doing, like, a lot of my dad’s hits, a couple originals of our own, but it’s gonna be a really great family show. We’ve been working really, really hard to just, you know, pay homage to him and get everything, like, sounding like it is on the record like my dad would want, and we’re really excited. So if you guys are available and you wanna have a good night out, come to the Garden Amphitheatre on July 11. [What’s the name of the band?] The Eddie Money Band. [So it’s in tribute to your dad, and I know your brother’s in it as well, right?] Yeah. My brother Dez Money is in it as well.” — Jesse Money, Singer, Actress, Daughter of Eddie Money

“[On producing the 1994 comedy, Dumb and Dumber] The number of people who turned us down and said, you know, if I were you, I wouldn’t get involved with that script. It’s so lowbrow, you know, you’re gonna lose all your money, it’s gonna be a nightmare, and you’ll never be able to recover. And, you know, it just goes to show, you stick with your guns sometimes and good things will happen. You know, of course, Peter and Bobby Farrelly are some of the best filmmakers ever produced in America. You know, Pete went on to win the Academy Award for the Green Book. I don’t know if you saw that movie, but it was super great. Incredible. You guys, they made Something About Mary, another classic great comedy, and they made so many others. They’re super, super talented and I’m glad to call them my friends.” —Brad Krevoy, Film Producer & CEO of Motion Picture Corporation of America

“Basically, when you walk in, you enter through our gift shop, and then the first part of the museum is a lot of props from movies like the Bad News Bears, like physical actual screen used props, also Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a huge collection that Danny Boyd from House of Payne donated. And then we have the original Fast Times at Ridgemont High bus that was in the movie. And so it kind of starts off that way. And then there’s like a whole BMX section, all the BMX bikes from the early ‘70s into the ‘80s.” —Tommy Gelinas, Founder & Curator of Valley Relics Museum

“I was going to Cal State Northridge or San Fernando Valley State at that time. I was an art and science major, so I didn’t think I would ever have a career in music. I knew I would always play, but I was looking at things that looked like they might have had more stability. Because that’s what you get when you’re a kid growing up. I mean, everybody, no matter how much they support you, they kind of are waiting for you to get a real profession, like a doctor, a lawyer, anything, a plumber, not a musician. So it just happens. You know? So it’s very hard to, like, say, here’s how I did it, so maybe you can do it this way because it was just a set of circumstances that turned into a perfect storm.”
— Leland Sklar, World-renowned Bassist & Session Musician

“Even punk rockers found what we did too intense. So they sometimes responded to us as if, you know, they were our parents and, you know, that’s not music. But as the years have gone on, people have got used to electronic noise and can hear that it is music.”
—Edward Stapleton, Nervous Gender

“Me and the drummer, Stan, were in a band from the time we were 14 on. So it was a high school band. And that band turned into the Shrinky Dinks, and the Shrinky Dinks is what Sugar Ray used to be called. And we had our very first practice at our friend, McG’s, who was a guest on your show. And him and our good friend Eric Vinge had a house together, and in the summer of 1988, we had our very first practice in their house. Then we moved that on over to Mark’s mom’s living room, practiced there for a while.” — Rodney Sheppard, Guitarist of Sugar Ray

“And I’ve always said I’m in it, but not of it. I’ve been here fifteen years now. And on the day that I went to Nan Robinson’s, she’s the one who connected me with Gee Smith, who is my first my cousin. She was a manager in Hollywood, and she had all these photographs on the wall. And I was just looking at the pictures, and there was Troy Donahue.” — Deborah Presley Brando

“So we just celebrate the fact that we haven’t killed each other yet. And it’s three guys that are dedicated to just making a controlled chaos and energy, and it just, you know, like I said, it just doesn’t happen that often. Again, I’ve been in many, many bands, many, many groups, where it was just no nobody got along. Nobody could do anything. You know, it was, you know, four guys with a paintbrush trying to paint a sailboat.
—Tommy Cuomo, Cali punk band, The Legendary Suspects

“[Why is it absolutely essential people buy your book?] Depends what subject matter you want to concentrate on. One of them, in answer to your question, would have to do with how we are all educated early on, to the states of matter that exist. We’re told there are three of them, solid, liquid, and gas, when in fact, right now on Earth, there are really only two. One is solid and one is gas. Liquid as it is, is a solid and acts as a solid by its result and becomes a gas via evaporation. It is not its own thing. By thinking of it as its own thing, we put a big block in front of us to seeing science for how it really is, for how it really affects our planet and ourselves.” —William Charles Duffy III, author of "The Plan to Save All Life on Earth"

“The Underground Garage cruise, I played with my old surf band, The Untamed Youth. You know, it just winds up being a whole bunch of different things and just a ton of songs to to learn and rehearse.” —Deke Dickerson, Singer/Songwriter, Guitarist and Columnist

“In my life, I'm in a better place. And really just grateful for where I'm at. And the people that I have in my life are amazing human beings. And there's a toxicity to being all of that time in Fishbone. And so I'm not experiencing that and being grateful for that.” —John Norwood Fisher, former Fishbone bassist