- Alice Cooper: Rock and roll should corrupt kids enough to think. There's nothing wrong with thinking.
- Lemmy: If you think you got what it takes, shove it out, run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it.
- Jeff Young: I'm not gonna cheat the audience that way. I don't get high when I'm practicing at home alone, so why should I do it when I go up onstage?
- Lemmy: It's fast and it's aggressive and it's rebellious and their parents hate it, which has always been the mark of good rock and roll. If your parents don't like it, it's good.
- Alice Cooper: There's just nothing but - - - fist in your face. And I think that's what's the great thing about metal. That's the - it saved rock-n-roll for the 80s.
- C.C. Deville: Belief in yourself should be the drug. Your confidence is what should really inspire you and keep you going and doing what you want to do.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: Why did you get into rock-n-roll in the beginning?
- Lemmy: Cause I noticed that you got lots of girls.
- Ozzy Osbourne: It's like drugs, they were okay at the time, but, we outgrow them, you know. We took LSD. We took cocaine. We took vast amounts of marijuana. It was fun at the time, but, then we started - we all just sort of said it wasn't a very good idea any more.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: So, you have a more stable life now?
- Ozzy Osbourne: No.
- [smiles]
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: So, you're not really into the devil then, huh?
- Ozzy Osbourne: Yes.
- [laughs]
- Dave Mustaine - Megadeth Guitarist: It doesn't matter what size your pencil is, it's how you write your name.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: You are the definitive hard rock band that really set the standards. How do you feel about that?
- Self - Aerosmith Vocalist: I love it. I think, you know, we took it to the mountain - and it's still there. It's rhythm and blues. It's twos and fours. It's fucking, you know. You can really fuck to a good Aerosmith song.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: What do you think about the pretty rock-n-roll stars?
- Lemmy: Good luck to them if they're pretty. I wish I was.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: Do you look at the Dolls and say, "Gee, they got a good look. We should look like that"?
- Self - Aerosmith Vocalist: Oh, yeah. I think I was in awe. I loved it. David Johansen had - they used to say I was a Mick Jagger lookalike, me, "he had lips for miles." I mean, that guy can swallow the earth. And has.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: Do you get mad if a band copies your style?
- Lemmy: No. Good luck to them. Maybe they'll do somethin' we can copy later.
- Self - Poison Vocalist: It's almost like what Tyler said one time, you know what I mean. He said that - he said with rock-n-roll, he goes, in the history, you know, everyone's doin' somethin' that someone else already did. So, you're repeating yourself; but, you're doin' it with your own style.
- Self - Aerosmith Vocalist: Joe and I are the toxic twins, baby. Known as being that.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: Are you proud of it?
- Self - Aerosmith Vocalist: Eh, no, you know. Knowin' that - yes that I went through it; but, no that all people know it, that they might think that's the way to do it, you know. And that isn't the way. That's not the way at all; because, you know, we painted ourselves into a major corner.
- Self - Aerosmith Guitar: Yeah, we figured that it was the only thing to do is - is clean up. So...
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: How long has that been?
- Self - Aerosmith Guitar: It's been 11 months now.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: And how do you feel?
- Self - Aerosmith Guitar: Still hung over a little bit. No, we're doin' good. We were feelin' sick and tired of feelin' sick and tired.
- Self - London Vocalist: You want to hear about Arizona? Well, I just found out when I was in my hotel room that - that - that oral sex was illegal. And that fuckin' bummed - that fuckin' bummed me out.
- Ozzy Osbourne: We came to America and we thought, like, drugs and all that was just a part of the gig, you know. But, you know, you get stoned and you get fucked up and not make your gig and all that. And what happened with Black Sabbath, we all ended up junkies and alcoholics, and everything, like the drummer ended up in a - in a - in a rehabilitation center. I did, for awhile. And, in the end, disaster happens. It's - it's - it's inevitable for it to happen. Disaster.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: How has it been being Miss Gazzarri Dancer?
- Self - Miss Gazzarri Dancer (1987): It has been the greatest time in my life.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: What was the best part of it?
- Self - Miss Gazzarri Dancer (1987): Getting up there, in front of a million people, and really doing it.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: What are you going to do now? Are you going to...
- Self - Miss Gazzarri Dancer (1987): I'm going to continue on my modeling and, great, hopefully get on with my actressing.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: What was the Betty Ford Clinic like?
- Ozzy Osbourne: Boring. No, actually, the educational value was okay. She made me realize that I was an alcoholic and I am a drug addict. But, I still am an alcoholic and you always are, you know. It's...
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: But, you feel better now?
- Ozzy Osbourne: No!
- Paul Stanley: You can play Russian roulette for five years and never get hurt and then one time you pull the trigger and it's all over.
- Alice Cooper: It's a lot of hours of throwing up blood and stuff like that. And, if you're gonna do that on stage it's great; but, it's not that much fun in a Holiday Inn.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: What do you think parents think of you?
- Paul Stanley: Do I care?
- Probation Officer: Heavy metal was more of an evolution, unlike punk rock. It evolved from hard rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple.
- [first lines]
- Self - Kiss Bassist: This movie is about groups, metal, guitars, girls, all that stuff. But, ultimately the movie is only *half* the story because half the true magic is about the fans. The most vocal fans all the time are heavy metal fans. They're the best! I salute them.
- Paul Stanley: I think heavy metal is the true rock-n-roll of the 80s and rock-n-roll was basically music made by people who were thinking with their crotches.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: I know that all the girls in the audience are gonna want to know this...
- Self - Poison Vocalist: Sixteen inches!
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: No.
- [laughs]
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: No.
- Self - Poison Vocalist: [laughs] Combination of all four - we're four - we're four a piece.
- Ozzy Osbourne: I like that inspiring, chilling feeling, that goosebumps up the spine, you know. That - that "You Really Go Me" - Da Da-Da Da-Da Umph! It's like an orgasm, you know.
- Self - London Vocalist: What is a fucking rock star? A dude that's got more money than I do? I got a bigger dick than all those dudes do.
- Self - London Guitarist: We just fucking - hey - you know what...
- Self - London Vocalist: It doesn't mean anything, you know.
- Self - London Guitarist: We just like to party.
- Self - Kiss Bassist: When we first started doing this stuff we didn't really talk about head banging, we talked about girl banging or gang banging or anything but head banging.
- Alice Cooper: That's just a rock-n-roll reaction. I think the actually head bangers of the 80s just make it a little more pronounced. They bleed a lot more, I think.
- [laughs]
- Self - Lizzy Borden Vocalist: You do get tired of the road. Every night, you know, seven nights a week. That's our schedule, seven nights a week playing. It gets - it gets to the point were you're kind of - you go crazy. And I think that's why a lot of the rockers are kind of senile.
- [laughs]
- Self - Lizzy Borden Vocalist: Because it happens.
- Self - Lizzy Borden Vocalist: We want to be the best and the biggest.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: What if it doesn't happen?
- Self - Lizzy Borden Vocalist: We know that we - we had a great time tryin'.
- [laughs]
- Self - Poison Drummer: This is how we did it, actually. We would - during the day we would rehearse, and at night we'd go to clubs, you know, and hand stuff out, we, you know, we'd try to look all cool and stuff, and just say, "Hey, yeah, come out and see the band," you know. At night, we'd go back, throw on our jeans, and be out there till 5 in the morning, you know, and I'm sayin', tryin' to - so no one knew what we looked like then. You know, puttin' all our fliers up, wallpaperin' it, and along would come another band and they would cover it it and then you'd sneak back and it's a *war*.
- Self - Poison Vocalist: If you buy a car and it's a great car, it looks great and it runs fast, it's great if you can handle the speed. If you can't handle, you know, the speed, you're gonna wreck. And I think that's the same thing with success. You obtain all this success and you can't handle it, I think it just goes to waste.
- Self - Poison Bassist: If I wasn't havin' fun, I wouldn't do it. I'd stop, most definitely.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: Even if it meant not having the money?
- Self - Poison Bassist: [smiles] I've already got the money.
- C.C. Deville: It's not the money, it's just, you know, if you enjoy what you're doing, it's fun; because, you never think about, "oh, I want to have this, I want to have that," you want to be on stage and that's the reward, you know.
- Self - Poison Vocalist: The older we get, the uglier we get, the more make up we got to put on. You know what I'm sayin'? It gets worse. It doesn't get any better.
- 18 Yr. Old Concert Promoter: Most of them just got out of high school and they don't know what to do and they can't get real jobs cause they don't look right for real jobs.
- Paul Stanley: Once you have money you realize that its really not important. What money gives you the opportunity to do is forget about money.
- Self - Aerosmith Guitar: We used drugs for so many years, it's like, you know, you - you burn out the punch card, you know what I mean. You've only got so many drinks in your life. I think I used all of mine in 35 years, you know. I was lookin' forward to havin' a few sips on the porch when I get older; but, it ain't in the cards, you know.
- Self - Aerosmith Vocalist: To survive the 60s and the 70s, it's like - it's a fucking miracle.
- Self - Interviewer - Penelope Spheeris: Do you think you could have been dead?
- Self - Aerosmith Vocalist: Oh, God, I was, several times.
- [laughs]