Quotes from Rick Nielsen

I've owned about 2,000 guitars through the years because I've traded a lot and given away and sold some stuff.

People used to trade their guitars to get new ones; I never traded anything.

My parents were both opera singers, and they also were both heavily into religious and church music.

My parents were opera singers. I didn't want to play opera because I wasn't good enough. I didn't want to play their music; I wanted to play the music that I wanted to play, and I'm so lucky that today I get to play that music, even though I don't like every song I write.

We tried to act trendy. We took one of our songs and tried to make a dance mix. They put it on the turntables, unannounced, in Los Angeles and New York the same weekend, where they had a big dance crowd going wild. It cleared the floor on both coasts.

It's an honor that people give a crap about us. We're in a rock band; we're not supposed to be treated with any respect.

No one knows this, but when I would play the clubs back in '65, '66, they used to call me 'Screaming Chicken,' 'cause I would go out and scream, fall on the ground, beat myself, smash stuff, jump through the ceiling, roll on the floor, and act like I was having epileptic fits.

I started out as a drummer, and when I was 9, my drum teacher had an album out. He was the rudiment king! He signed it for me, 'Rudimentally yours, Frank Arsenault.' How cool is that?

We're Cheap Trick, and the majority of people know about three songs, and the real huge fans know about eight. There are 292 songs people have never heard.

I like the guys in Cheap Trick. I like playing in it and the music we do.

There's no rush to ever put out a new Cheap Trick record. We put it out when we feel like it.

Cheap Trick have always prided ourselves on being groundbreaking.

I took one guitar lesson, and they wanted me to play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' or 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore,' and that was the last guitar lesson that I ever took, so I taught myself what I wanted to know.

We may not be proud of every song we've ever done - or been forced to do - but I believe we've done more than meets the eye.

I don't always feel like a million dollars, but I try not to let anybody know.

I always hated watching bands: the guy would break a string or be out of tune, and I have perfect pitch, so it would always tick me off when a guy is up there, and he'd break a string.

When you're growing up you need your parents, but you don't want to be associated with them because you're trying to have your own life.

I'd rather be known as a songwriter than a guitarist, although I love to play the guitar.

The way I look at it, I'm a songwriter that just happens to play guitar.

When a guitarist can evoke a certain mood through his playing, that's what's most important to me.

I got to meet Keith Moon!

I feel like such an idiot... you know, that our band didn't break up just so we can re-form and become more and more popular.

If you can say something special on the guitar, then you're going to perk my ears up. But if you're just gonna run through all the scales, then I can always find something else to listen to.

Nobody wants to hear long speeches.