Tommy Bolin quotes:

My first joint I smoked onstage in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I smoked my first joint live.

I used to listen a lot to Rolling Stones records and play along with them when I was first starting. It's a good way to learn, jamming around basic music.

The best money I made was panhandling.

All the different styles I've played have really helped me as a guitarist and helped me develop my own way of playing.

Blues teaches you to develop coherent solos, because the form you're playing over is so basic. You have to develop leads that go someplace.

I don't like English bands. They're too structured.

Lots of times it really doesn't matter what notes you play, but what notes come before and after a run.

I think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.

Once I was playing and moving around and I fell right on my back. Just straight on my back. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

If you're not having fun it's not worth doing.

When I first colored my hair, my mother loved it. I got kicked out of school when I was 15, just for my hair.

How do you stop somebody from growing?

I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.

I have my own style, but it's different for each kind of music. There are certain little characteristic things every player has.

I just started off on my own by learning the regular chords then the barre chords. Then I'd lean the notes that would go with them.

I learned a lot about lead; you don't have to blow your cookies in the first bar. It is much harder to be simple that to be complicated during solos.

I used to try and take things in leaps and bounds. Now I've realized it's got to be step by step.

I started on drums when I was 13 and played them for two years. Then I went to guitar for a year, played keyboards for a year and a half, and went back to guitar.

Right now I feel so inspired, it's hard to believe. I've written about 20 songs in the last two days. I'd gone about four months without writing a thing.

A lot of things just got distorted, like stories about each other. After the tour we never talked. I believe a band should be a band.

A lot of times I wish I would have learned to read music, but I'm very impatient.

For me, practice isn't doing scales but doing things like writing, jamming with other people, or playing gigs.

I blew my voice out and the doctor said, don't even talk for a week.

I can't do anything but play guitar.

I can't see. I used to wear glasses off stage. Now I'm thinking of getting a pair of contract lenses.

I want the new band to work together for a while, and when we're ready we'll invite every major record company to see us.

I'd rather work than not.

I'll hear something in my head, then eventually play it. But it's a subconscious thing. Most of the time I really don't know what I'm playing.

I'll play drums a lot at home, and it will help my wrist action.

My family were all musicians. I really wasn't interested in school or anything.

When I got to LA and was with the James Gang, I got the opportunity to write a lot, to play in front of large audiences, make some money.

When I'm with Purple, I'm totally with Purple; when I'm doing my thing, I'm totally doing my own thing.

When you come from the Midwest, you have a more open mind than if you come from the West Coast or the East Coast.

You're in direct contact with the music by having the strings under your fingers. It's not mechanical like a piano.