Quotes from Steve Miller

That's what I wanted to do was play music.

There aren't very many clubs. There's no place for people to develop and play.

I love performing, and connecting with an audience never gets old for me.

I love performing, and connecting with an audience never gets old for me, but it does get old for me when my audience is just only interested in something they've already heard.

You better believe I'm not a pop star.

In some states, the population is pretty low and if 5,000 kids vote, they could completely change the political atmosphere.

When I was a kid, I never thought I would ever be able to make records and never really thought seriously about a musical career because a musical career was being Fabian or Frankie Avalon or something. It didn't make any sense. There wasn't any possibility to get into that world.

We have screwed with our environment. We have a culture that's going crazy, and it's all being propelled by the trillion-dollar advertising corporations.

What I always expect to deliver to my audience is a very entertaining evening of singing and playing.

From the minute I became aware of Jimmie Vaughan and his playing, he was one of my very favorites. So I made it my business to meet him and become friends with him - to work with him and record some of his material.

Right before I moved out to San Francisco, I played in Buddy Guy's band.

I love San Francisco.

Basically, as everybody that has had a taste of the record business knows, they are gangsters and crooks.

Hip-hop belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's one of the most radical, revolutionary and reactionary music there is.

If folks really want music in their community they can do it very cheaply. It doesn't have to be a $50 million program. All we need is just a little real estate.

I was exposed to jazz and blues and gospel and country music and rock, and I was the only kid I knew who knew about that stuff.

Actually, I have my moments, but I don't consider myself a grumpy guy.

I kind of enjoyed having people complain that I wasn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame more than I think I'll like being in it.

If there were 3,000 people in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the musical education would be so much better than this little elite thing.

Generally what you see happen is these talented kids make a great album, but they don't have a chance unless they have someone working with them who has integrity. They get thrown out by MTV and radio in six weeks, and they don't get any time to grow.

As soon as I understood what was going on in San Francisco, which was in 1965 and '66, I immediately left Chicago where I was working in a nightclub that was being shaken down by the mafia and the police for payments. I mean, it was a real thug world.

Record companies, they're just like lemmings.

Giving a record company an album is like giving a gangster your baby or something.

I was living and working with adult men who were playing a real art form. And I had been playing blues all my life. As soon as I formed my first band, we played Jimmy Reed stuff. So it wasn't like I was a white kid who was learning the blues from B.B. King records.