Time & Perspective Quote by Tony Visconti

Rock mythology loves a body count, even when the casualties are internal. Tony Visconti, a producer-musician who helped architect glam’s shine and danger, speaks like someone who’s seen the ledger up close. The opening line gives Rock and Roll agency: it "tried to take its toll", as if the genre is a seductive machine built to extract years, nerves, and self-control. That framing matters. It lets him acknowledge the culture without turning the story into confession porn.

The refusal to "talk about my past excesses" is its own kind of disclosure. In a world where credibility is often measured in scar tissue, silence becomes a boundary: a veteran insisting his life isn’t merely backstage lore. Then he sketches the predictable counterargument: "hardcore rockers might argue" the excesses fueled the art. That’s the old bargain, sold as authenticity. Visconti punctures it by placing himself outside the fantasy, not as a moralist but as an accountant of consequences.

"I know which side I came out on" lands with quiet finality. It’s not triumphant; it’s survivorship talk. Subtext: the records weren’t worth the damage, or at least the damage wasn’t necessary for the records. Coming from someone whose career is entangled with artists who flirted with self-destruction as brand and fuel, it reads like a corrective to the narrative that genius requires wreckage. He’s defending craft over chaos, longevity over legend, and insisting that staying alive is an artistic choice, not a footnote.