Quotes from Butch Trucks

I was going to go back to college and become a math teacher.

The music became secondary to being rock stars.

A lot of these guys come up and say, 'Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums.' They don't seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment - and painful.

Oh, he's magic. Faulkner has opened passages in my brain. You do things you'd never expect.

People feel entitled to take whatever's online without paying for it.

We were either listening to jazz or Robert Johnson, the old blues man, but not to our peers.

There's always going to be a percentage of the kids out there who want to hear people who can actually play and sing.

Of all the songs we played, 'Statesboro Blues' was the most ripped-off.

Phil Walden had complete faith in us, and I'll respect him forever for that. I think he sunk about $150,000 in us. He was close to bankruptcy a lot of the time, and Atlantic kept telling him we didn't have a chance.

After we did the last Allman Brothers Band show, my wife and I just packed up and went to France for pretty much all of 2015, and I just got bored; I got the itch. I wanna play.

I feel like the Cal Ripkin of rock n' roll.

Listen to John Coltrane. When he plays 'A Love Supreme,' that guy is totally into himself.

This is show business, and there's room for the shows and the personalities. But I think there's also room for music, for people to play music, and there seems to be an audience developing that's willing to go listen to music again, rather than just be blown away by drum machines and choreography.

I have done nothing my entire life but play music.

There's this new band that just started with us called the Dave Matthews Band. My God! I mean, I like those guys. Plus, Dave Matthews looks just like Forrest Gump.

Putting together two powerful sets is always difficult. After you really pour it out one night, it's hard to pour it out the next night.

We've been lucky because quite a few young people keep coming to see us play. We couldn't tour as much as we do if we could only count on the baby boomers.

You're playing for yourself. And if you're not playing for yourself, you're an entertainer, doing it for the crowd.

There are so many good, young bands out there who aren't getting the attention they deserve.

Once we started headlining at the Fillmore East, we were free to play all night, at least for the second set. 'Whipping Post' could get lengthy.

When I listened to Elvin Jones, man, for the first time I heard a drummer that had all the technique plus emotion, passion, feel, and just - good God!

To be able to take music and do something as profoundly original as what we did with the Allman Brothers, you've got to put some time into it.

When I play, I stare at the left hand of whoever is playing lead. And I get to know what people are playing well enough that when they start going somewhere, once they arrive, I'm already there.

A lot of the cities where we have a strong following, we don't even get to every year anymore. But Stony Brook was a place that, from the very first time we went, the chemistry was right. They loved us, and we loved them, and we just kept going back and going back.