Love & Passion Quote by Mike McCready

There is a particular kind of rock origin story that doesn’t start with virtuosity, but with permission. Mike McCready’s nod to KISS isn’t a claim about refined taste; it’s a confession about ignition. KISS has always been less about harmonic sophistication than about volume, spectacle, and the brazen insistence that being a rock musician is something you can decide to become. That’s the secret payload in “pick up a guitar and go for it”: the leap from fan to participant.

McCready came up in a scene that later got branded as anti-glam and authenticity-obsessed. Grunge mythology likes its heroes earnest, scrappy, allergic to artifice. So invoking KISS functions as a sly corrective. It admits that even the supposedly “real” Seattle sound was fueled by theatrical, adolescent awe. The subtext is generous: inspiration doesn’t have to be tasteful, cool, or critic-approved to be life-changing. It just has to be catalytic.

The phrasing is tellingly plain. “Inspired me personally” stakes a claim against gatekeepers; it’s not “KISS are important,” it’s “KISS got to me.” “Go for it” captures the democratizing fantasy at the core of guitar culture: that you don’t need credentials, only nerve. Coming from a player celebrated for feel and firepower, it also reframes influence as emotional infrastructure. Before there’s craft, there’s the moment someone makes the impossible seem doable.