- Dave Grohl, Himself: [Describing the cover of Nirvana's "Nevermind" LP] People went to great lengths. Like they'd get that weird foam and cardboard stuff and make a baby and there's a actual dollar bill dangling in front of it and it looks like water behind it. And, you know, when you would see people go to that much trouble for you, for your band, we were just, like, we were just shocked.
- Dave Grohl, Himself: I got a job at Tower Records, 'cause that's the only place I could get a job with my f*ckin' hair cut. That is the truth.
- [laughs]
- Dave Grohl, Himself: I love Tower Records and I love music and I only wanted to work at Tower Records and be surrounded by these cool people and all this cool music. I just, I just imagine that everybody that worked at Tower was an afficionado.
- Dave Grohl, Himself: Every music store, whether it was a place to go buy drum sticks or a place to go buy records, were total snobs. Total snobs.
- David Geffen, Himself: You had the Troubadour and you had the Roxy and you had the Whiskey and lots of clubs that they played coming up. So, those artists would look through Tower and wonder when their record were going to be there.
- David Geffen, Himself: If you loved music and you loved having a record collection, which I did, it was exciting to walk through the store. I went there three or four times a week.
- Bruce Springsteen, Himself: We just drove down Sunset Boulevard and we were just eyeballing everything we could see and there was a huge record store. Its that place where your dreams meet the listener. That's were the final connection was made. That audience you dreamt of is walking through the door right now and you can stand there and watch that happen. There are your listeners. You know the place also served as a kind of a lost boys club. So, if you were a young musician and you came into town and you didn't know what to do, the first thing you did was you went to Tower Records.
- David Geffen, Himself: Artists were in California and in Los Angeles, would go into Tower Records to find out where their records were and if there was a pile of Elton John and there wasn't a pile of the Eagles, the Eagles weren't happy or vice versa.
- Sir Elton John, Himself: It was comfortable, it wasn't, it was not intimidating what so ever. It was inviting. It was like going to your favorite cafe.
- Sir Elton John, Himself: I can honestly say this, without any exaggeration, I spent more money in Tower Records than any other human being.
- Bruce Springsteen, Himself: It was famous for the record cover paintings that was jammed on its walls outside... You aspired to have your album part of that big mural out there.
- David Geffen, Himself: The industry as a whole didn't respond appropriately to what was happening. What they should have done is made records cheaper. They could have. But, they didn't.
- David Geffen, Himself: How do you compete with that? You know, if you could get Coca-Cola for free from your faucet, you wouldn't buy a bottle of Coca-Cola.
- David Geffen, Himself: If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair - it was like that, you know. You walked through the streets of San Francisco and there were people, you know, smoking pot and having little daisies in their hair and hanging out and the Fillmore was packed and, you know, it was a change. People were against the war and against segregation and there was a lot of political feeling in the world and a lot of it was centered in the change that was happening in San Francisco and that's the caldron in which Tower Records was born.
- Bruce Springsteen, Himself: Well, first, there was the thrill of being surrounded by music - 80% of it is a complete mystery to you. So, when we came west, we were shocked at the size of Tower Records and simply how many records there were.
- [laughs]
- Bruce Springsteen, Himself: You know, everybody in a record store is a little bit of your friend for 20 minutes or so, you know.
- [laughs]
- Bruce Springsteen, Himself: So, there was that family aspect of a real record store.
- Sir Elton John, Himself: Tuesday mornings I would be at Tower Records at 10 o'clock - 9 o'clock in LA. The store would open at 9 and they'd let me in and it was a ritual and it was a ritual I loved. It was my music center. Yeah, I knew where everything was and if they didn't have something in one week and they didn't have the next week, I told them. "You need to, you know, you need to get this in."
- Sir Elton John, Himself: I mean, Tower Records had everything. Those people knew their stuff. They were really on their ball. I mean, they just weren't employees and they happened to work at music stores. They were devoted to music and that's what I loved about the Tower. I talk about music with them. They could say, "Hey, have you heard this?" And, eh, it was, it was just like they were like friends. I knew the guys in the store pretty well because I was so, you know, a regular.
- Sir Elton John, Himself: It was one of the greatest tragedies of my life, to be honest with you, when it closed down. It really, really upset me. I miss it. I miss that routine, you know, of going to buy my records or my CDs, whatever.