Quotes from Butch Trucks

My hearing after 50 years of playing music sometimes isn't too great.

I was going to go back to college and become a math teacher.

Donald Trump has been horrendous, saying things are bad because of Muslims or Mexicans. This is exactly what happened in the 1930s in Germany, and it's gonna get worse.

I look at making a record and being in a recording studio as more of a craft; You have to be so much more careful and play simpler.

A lot of these guys come up and say, 'Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums.' They don't seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment - and painful.

One that really caught me was Joe Morello. He was the first drummer I ever saw that could do a roll with one hand. He would turn his hand over and use his fingertips to get the stick bouncing. He could sit there with his right hand doing stuff on the cymbals and tom-toms while he was doing a roll with his left on the snare drum.

Phil Walden had complete faith in us, and I'll respect him forever for that. I think he sunk about $150,000 in us. He was close to bankruptcy a lot of the time, and Atlantic kept telling him we didn't have a chance.

When I listened to Elvin Jones, man, for the first time I heard a drummer that had all the technique plus emotion, passion, feel, and just - good God!

I don't think we listened to any rock n' roll at all in the early days. It was Miles Davis and John Coltrane 95% of the time.

I love Lucille Ball. But you don't call that Shakespeare. It's just entertainment, you know. And if you like that, then go have a ball, have fun.

For a long time, our only mode of travel was an Econoline van. Eleven of us, with nine sleeping in the back on two mattresses.

Duane lived life right on the edge. If you ever read Goethe's Faust, Duane Allman was very much that kind of figure. His deal with Mephistopheles was to experience everything life has to offer, good and bad.