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The music became secondary to being rock stars.

Until MTV, television had not been a huge influence on music. To compete with MTV, the country music moguls felt they had to appeal to the same young audience and do it the way MTV did.

Just because you're a star on television doesn't mean that you can be a music phenomenon or an artist. You have to have the material to back it, and it's all about hit songs. I can name you every 'Idol' winner and why they didn't go on to have success - their songs. The ones who have - their songs.

I think that with the success of, like, VH1's 'Behind The Music' and stuff like that, the fact that it's so successful, it's clear that people are interested in rock lives.

If you look at the way people behave at shows, icons are now musicians; they are the people that we worship.

There are plenty of people in the world who have tried to be rock stars and have not gotten there.

To a degree, rock fans like to live vicariously and they like that, music fans in general, but when indie music sort of came into prominence in the early '90s, a lot of it was TV-driven, too, where if you saw the first Nirvana video, you're looking at three guys that look like people you go to school with.

The only people playing the roles of classic rock stars are hip-hop artists, now. Kanye's stage persona, and the way he approaches making albums, and the way he wants to be better than everyone else? That's reminiscent of Freddie Mercury. That's reminiscent of the Beatles.

The big issue with rock stars becoming actors is that sometimes it's not believable, and vice versa with actors becoming rock stars. Sometimes just doesn't fit.

Rock became an incredible commercial success, people just became bored with serious music, and it was forgotten.