Butch Trucks

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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.
- Butch Trucks
Collection: Anger
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Eric Clapton has earned all of our respect. He is the greatest. He opened the doors for us. Without Cream, there is no Allman Brothers.
- Butch Trucks
Collection: Respect
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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.
- Butch Trucks
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I loathe and detest heavy metal.
- Butch Trucks
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That was my first love growing up - classical orchestral music, especially Impressionism.
- Butch Trucks
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Oh, he's magic. Faulkner has opened passages in my brain. You do things you'd never expect.
- Butch Trucks
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These people that dress up in spandex trousers with all the extraordinary makeup - I find it incredibly repulsive, always have.
- Butch Trucks
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That whole Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame thing - at least half the people in there don't have a place in any kind of hall of fame anywhere, in my opinion.
- Butch Trucks
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Ginger Baker was never my favorite, but he was part of the group Cream that opened the door to what we did. They were the first band to really get into improvisation. They were an absolute necessity to what came later.
- Butch Trucks
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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.
- Butch Trucks
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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.
- Butch Trucks
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My wife speaks very good French. She said she would miss lots of things in the U.S., but we can't live there if Trump's president.
- Butch Trucks
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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.
- Butch Trucks
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I'm not going to keep my mouth shut.
- Butch Trucks
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We have a well and a garden. I crawl around in the mud and grow great vegetables.
- Butch Trucks
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Majored in staying out of Vietnam.
- Butch Trucks
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When you're good-looking, I think you usually don't have to work as hard.
- Butch Trucks
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I've gotta be the only father begging his son to leave a six-figure job to go play in a rock n' roll band!
- Butch Trucks
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I'm enjoying the hell out of playing straight. It seems to be the case with everybody. We're having a lot more fun. The energy is going into the music now, instead of all the side trips we got into in the '70s.
- Butch Trucks
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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.
- Butch Trucks
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We're a live band. It's what we do best.
- Butch Trucks
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People feel entitled to take whatever's online without paying for it.
- Butch Trucks
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There are so many good, young bands out there who aren't getting the attention they deserve.
- Butch Trucks
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When we started the Allman Brothers Band, there was this great new technology that allowed us to get exposure: FM radio.
- Butch Trucks
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I have done nothing my entire life but play music.
- Butch Trucks
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I was going to go back to college and become a math teacher.
- Butch Trucks
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Playing live is really the art form. You're a lot freer, a lot looser. You've got people there that can give you feedback, and then you can play off of that. There's so much more energy.
- Butch Trucks
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Nobody is playing music like this, like the Allman Brothers, and there's still a lot of fans out there, so that's what we're doing with Les Brers.
- Butch Trucks
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We would work up a tune that would make me learn a drum pattern I hadn't played before. In the early stages, the pattern wouldn't just fall into place, and I would start thinking about it. And the more I thought about it, the worse it would get.
- Butch Trucks
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I remember somebody came in with Chicago Transit Authority, and we listened to it one time.
- Butch Trucks
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We were either listening to jazz or Robert Johnson, the old blues man, but not to our peers.
- Butch Trucks
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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.
- Butch Trucks
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The only way a musician can express feelings is playing.
- Butch Trucks
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We all knew that asking another guitar player to step into Duane Allman's shoes would not really be fair to anybody who had a conscience.
- Butch Trucks
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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.
- Butch Trucks
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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!
- Butch Trucks
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I like some things other people don't like, and they like stuff I don't like.
- Butch Trucks
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When we started the Allman Brothers, it was all about the music.
- Butch Trucks
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When we started Allman Brothers, Atlantic Records kept telling us there was no way it was going anywhere.
- Butch Trucks
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You're playing for yourself. And if you're not playing for yourself, you're an entertainer, doing it for the crowd.
- Butch Trucks
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Listen to John Coltrane. When he plays 'A Love Supreme,' that guy is totally into himself.
- Butch Trucks
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This is show business, and there's room for the shows and the personalities. But I think there's also room for music, for people to play music, and there seems to be an audience developing that's willing to go listen to music again, rather than just be blown away by drum machines and choreography.
- Butch Trucks
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After being away from it for so long, it's really nice to go out and have 10- or 15,000 people show up and enjoy it. It leaves you with a very good feeling.
- Butch Trucks
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When I play, I stare at the left hand of whoever is playing lead. And I get to know what people are playing well enough that when they start going somewhere, once they arrive, I'm already there.
- Butch Trucks
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Once we started headlining at the Fillmore East, we were free to play all night, at least for the second set. 'Whipping Post' could get lengthy.
- Butch Trucks
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If there's anybody who knew how to play in a studio, it was Duane Allman.
- Butch Trucks
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Of all the songs we played, 'Statesboro Blues' was the most ripped-off.
- Butch Trucks
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I have the distinction of being the only member of the Allman Brothers who has never missed a single show. I have played every single show the Allman Brothers have ever played.
- Butch Trucks
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I feel like the Cal Ripkin of rock n' roll.
- Butch Trucks
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When we're playing, when we're really, really going... you're just in the moment. You're not thinking about yesterday, tomorrow, or anything else. The brain gets out of the way. Your body just does what it knows how to do, and it's just... it's like a religion.
- Butch Trucks