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Creativity Quote by Jerry Only

"My job is not babysitting people; my job is focusing on making the best band I possibly can"

About this Quote

There is a particular kind of exhaustion baked into Jerry Only's line: not the glamorous burnout of touring, but the low-grade fatigue of managing adults who want to be treated like children. "Babysitting" is a deliberately belittling verb, a way of drawing a hard boundary between craft and drama. He is saying the quiet part out loud: bands rarely break because the riffs aren't good enough; they break because personalities, addictions, and petty power plays eat the calendar.

The intent is managerial, almost corporate, but it lands with punk bluntness. Only frames leadership as selection and focus, not emotional caretaking. That's a provocative stance in a culture that romanticizes bands as families. Families require patience; bands require output. The subtext is an ultimatum to bandmates and, just as pointedly, to fans who fetishize chaos as authenticity. He's refusing the myth that instability is part of the art. If the music matters, the surrounding circus has to shrink.

Context sharpens it. The Misfits' history is basically a case study in how iconic branding can outlive functional relationships: lineup churn, legal battles, competing narratives of ownership and legacy. When the catalog becomes bigger than any one member, "best band" starts to mean more than musical chemistry. It means discipline, consistency, and protecting a recognizable product without calling it a product. That tension is why the quote works: it's a musician admitting that professionalism is itself a creative choice, and that sometimes the most rebellious move is simply showing up, rehearsed.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Only, Jerry. (2026, January 17). My job is not babysitting people; my job is focusing on making the best band I possibly can. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-job-is-not-babysitting-people-my-job-is-49852/

Chicago Style
Only, Jerry. "My job is not babysitting people; my job is focusing on making the best band I possibly can." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-job-is-not-babysitting-people-my-job-is-49852/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My job is not babysitting people; my job is focusing on making the best band I possibly can." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-job-is-not-babysitting-people-my-job-is-49852/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Jerry Only (born April 21, 1959) is a Musician from USA.

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