Top 60 Steve Miller Quotes

By 1949 I knew all the studio tricks.

I never considered myself like a pop musician or rock star, because that didn’t really exist when I started.

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.

I’ve demanded respect for myself and my band and my peers, I’ve demanded full artistic control for my music, I advocate for artists and music education wherever I can. And I’m a nice guy.

It’d be really great to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame mature. It’s a good facility there in Cleveland. I like the museum a lot.

I’ve always considered myself a serious guitar player, but I haven‘t been really worried about whether the public thought I was. That never was part of my record sales strategy.

You better believe I’m not a pop star.

My strongest message is: ‘Never give your songs away. Never sign a contract you can’t get out of.’

I don’t even hear radio anymore.

The Joker,’ I made the album in 17 days and it was my last shot.

Being talented was a hard way to make it. But I made it on my talent and songs.

There aren’t that many people that cover my music. It’s kind of hard to cover. Everybody always has their own spin. The only guy who didn’t, I think, was Seal. It just sounded like a bad version of ‘Fly Like an Eagle.’

The truth of the matter is, things that feel spontaneous have a much longer life than things that have got a lot of burnt brain tissue to make them perfect.

I love the sound of vinyl best. My sweetheart and I love to put on a vinyl record, it feels and sounds so much better.

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

When ‘Joker’ came out in ’73, I finally got a viral hit. Every DJ who heard it played it.

We are living in a country that has taken the short view on everything. We have sold our future.

Vinyl’s like a really juicy steak compared to like a kind of tough steak or something. It’s really good. And once you listen to vinyl and get a chance to hear it, I think anyone will enjoy it more than they will digital.

I can walk into Tower Records, go get my box set, take out my Steve Miller credit card, and the clerk will look at me and go, ‘Thanks, next.’

What the hell is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and what does it do besides talk about itself and sell postcards?

The audience wants to hear ‘Rock n’ Me,’ ‘Space Cowboy,’ ‘Living in the U.S.A.’ When you start to play something else, you can feel the interest and enthusiasm go; the steam goes out of room. They are really ‘Greatest Hits‘ fans and that’s what they want to hear. It’s disappointing that it’s this way in the U.S.

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.

I like most bands.

Journey was a jazzy jam band when they first started. They were very out there.

For the longest time, I was uninterested in dealing with EMI Records.

I have my own studio. I’m in it all the time.

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

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

Growing up in Dallas, my first influences on the guitar were T-Bone Walker and Les Paul. T-Bone taught me how to play lead guitar behind my head and do the splits in 1951 when I was nine.

I’ve been blessed to work with so many wonderful musicians and engineers and friends over the years.

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.

The digital world is so convenient and nice, but just playing back a vinyl record is a much warmer, hotter, more present feeling.

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

Our real business is the people who come to see us play and want to hear us play, so I have a very active career.

My dad was kind of a hipster, and a doctor.

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.

When I was a kid this is what I was listening to on my car radio – Lowell Fulsom singing ‘Tramp.’

All jazz comes from blues. Blues first.

Ooh Poo Pah Doo’ was a monster song.

I want to entertain my audience. I know when then come and see me play, if I don’t do ‘Swing Town,’ ‘Jet Airliner,’ ‘Take the Money and Run,’ ‘True Fine Love,’ ‘Fly Like an Eagle,’ ‘The Joker,’ blah blah blah – if I don’t do all those songs, they’ll be extremely disappointed. I love to do them.

Is there one blues guy who was the most sophisticated and influential, like Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong in jazz? Was it Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Robert Johnson, or all of them? I think you have to pick all of them.

Each time I hit the road to gig, it still feels like I’m going to summer camp.

It’s not always about huge giant commercial success. It’s about art.

The record business has been so unpleasant and so bad for so long.

I like hooks and choruses, things people can sing to.

From the time I was 12 until I was 21, Chuck Berry was my favorite artist.

Record companies, they’re just like lemmings.

For guitar players especially, blues is the foundation of rock and roll. You take country music and rock and roll and jazz and you mix it together, and that’s my basic makeup.

The way it worked was my mom came from a musical family, and my dad didn’t – he was a pathologist.

My plan is to keep playing until I fall over.

In 1956, I began playing in a band with Boz Scaggs.

The people at Jazz at Lincoln Center are an amazing group and have done a phenomenal job teaching kids and audiences of all ages about jazz.

We sold 1.5 million copies of the ‘Abracadabra’ album and 26,000 copies of ‘Italian X-Rays.’

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.

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.

Dealing with Jazz at Lincoln Center and its board of directors, who are so great, and then seeing how these Rock Hall guys operate, it’s like: ‘Really?’ It seems like they’re total amateurs when it comes to doing shows and contracts.

Blues is one of the most important art forms. It’s an amazing music, and we don’t want to lose it.

I’ve known Chicago for 50 years; we used to play shows at the Avalon Ballroom.

Les Paul was my godfather.

I’m very proud of my dad.