Charlie Watts Quotes

I think it's an awful drink, to be honest with you.

When I was a kid I never learned to play. I actually got in bands through watching people play and copying them.

The world of this is a load of crap. You get all these bloody people, so incredibly sycophantic.

I don't need to hear Bill to go through a song. I need to hear Keith to go through a song. I know Bill will be playing what I'm playing anyway. I need to hear Keith because it's all there: the time, the chord changes, and all the licks you have to follow.

To be able to play as slow as Al Jackson is almost impossible.

Mick's not good on his own problems, but he's very good at other people's. He's been wonderful over the years. I don't mean I ring him up every week, but he's fantastic.

I saw Al Foster with Miles Davis the other week. It was beautiful. But, the whole thing was, Al Foster played as well as everybody else, but all of them were quite brilliant under Miles Davis' direction.

I didn't know what the hell Charlie Parker was playing ... I just liked the way he played.

I think you get to a point where you watch something just to enjoy it. I don't think it's really done so that you're supposed to feel, Oh, he's the most wonderful drummer. I think the whole lot is what's more enjoyable.

A lot of our tracks have sounded a lot better than I thought they would because of recording, mixing, and because I probably didn't hear it that way. I'm not a songwriter.

I never weigh myself. But if I put my trousers on and they don't do up, then I don't eat until I can.

Rock and roll has probably given more than it's taken.

I have a very old-fashioned and traditional mode of dress. I get embarrassed, and I don't really like going to photo shoots. I don't like stylists.

I don't like drum solos, to be honest with you, but if anybody ever told me he didn't like Buddy Rich I'd right away say go and see him, at least the once.

It doesn't really change, actually. I think The Rolling Stones have gotten a lot better. An awful lot better, I think. A lot of people don't, but I think they have, and to me that's gratifying. It's worth it.

I never had lessons. Used to try to play to records, which I hated doing. Still can't play to them.

I've seen Keith fall asleep at business meetings about millions of dollars for him-because of heroin, just nod out and then wake up and answer a question.

You need better technique than I have to play jazz, but what you have to do is the same thing, isn't it?

People say I play real loud. I don't, actually. I'm recorded loud and a lot of that is because we have good engineers. Mick knows what a good drum sound is as well, so that's part of the illusion really. I can't play loud.

When people talk about the '60s I never think that was me there. It was me and I was in it, but I was never enamoured with all that. It's supposed to be sex and drugs and rock and roll and I'm not really like that. I've never really seen the Rolling Stones as anything.