Quotes from Bill Medley

Every so often, if I'm in a melancholy mood, I'll sing 'Desperado' in my shows. I'll sit alone at the piano and play it as a solo. The song feels like an old friend - except now it's saying, 'You were a desperado once, but you worked your way out of it.'

I'm kind of a nervous guy. I know on television I look like I'm half asleep, but inside I'm going about 100 miles an hour.

For Bobby and I to sing R&B and sound black was probably the stupidest thing we could do. White radio stations wouldn't play us because they thought we were black. Black stations wouldn't play us because they thought we were white. Any time you break ground, you go against the grain.

It sounds odd, but I was a singer and started writing songs, and I didn't have anything in mind. Maybe it crossed my mind that it would be cool to have a hit record and a career, but that was so out of reach that I don't think I thought about it that much.

There's this Bruno Mars guy. I met him in Hawaii when was doing Elvis imitations at the age of about five or six years old. There's a lot of old school in him. He's got a depth that I just love.

I'm a Santa Ana boy from 1940 to all my life. And Santa Ana was different only in the fact that Orange County was just small. Hell, I used to ride my motorcycle through the orange groves, and now it's tracts of homes.

The Righteous Brothers got so heavy because of the dramatic hit records like 'Lovin' Feelin.' Bobby and I just felt like we were a couple of Orange County guys who were just having a great time singing rock n' roll, and then, boy, it became something else.

Elvis was a great guy. We'd just horse around together or go to see a movie. He drove me around Graceland in a golf cart. He was a fan of our music and was curious about how I sounded so black.

The Old Vegas is gone. It's not that it's necessarily better or worse; it's just totally different.

I just can't stand being in airports anymore. I just can't stand it.

The emotion of a song's lyrics has always been what grabs me deeply.