“I’m so fond of Headquarters because that was the one we actually got to play on, that was our album, that was the garage band that we actually became playing its debut album. And we had a good time and I thought we put some good records together, and I thought — it stands up. It’s a little thin, but what the heck. So were we at the time. (laughs)” - Peter Tork, GOLD 104.5, 1999
“I’m totally proud of ‘Headquarters.’ The group energy was just incredible. One of the songs that I wrote for the album [‘For Pete’s Sake‘] was good enough to be used over the show’s closing credits the second year.” - Peter Tork, Chicago Sun-Times, November 16, 2012
Q: “As you look back on your career with the Monkees can you identify what you’re most proud of?”
Peter Tork: “Headquarters… because that was when the band fought and won… my skills and contribution was being the root. It was a great boost for me. I am extremely grateful that I was able to do what I did in the public arena. It’s a huge debt of gratitude. I owe the Monkees a huge debt of gratitude on that account.” - White’s Bar News Blog, August 2012
"When we made Headquarters, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. My whole goal had been to be a member of a band that worked.” - Peter Tork, The Guardian, April 28, 2011
“We made a record called Headquarters and I was as happy as a clam. For a garage band, which is what we really were, that record seems to me to stand up very well. It was four funny, imaginative guys with a range of capacities.” - Peter Tork, The Star, May 13, 2011
Q: “Peter, starting with Headquarters in 1967, it seems you were one of the first guys to actually make the banjo a significant element of pop-rock songs.”
Peter Tork: “I wasn’t even thinking about doing that. I just thought, ‘The banjo would sound good here.’ If I’m fond of my own work at all, it’s the opening lick to ‘You Told Me’ from Headquarters. The guitar starts off [mimics guitar] and then the banjo cuts in [mimics banjo] and suddenly, you’re in a whole new realm. To me, building those kinds of textures is what music is all about, and there are a couple of places where the banjo contributed nicely to the Monkees’ basic rock. It seems I’m a rocker who happens to play banjo, or a banjo player who happens to rock. I don’t know.” - Guitar Player Magazine, October 2016
“[Peter] threw himself into the album’s musical arrangements.[…] ‘It was a lot of fun playing [different] instruments on [Headquarters],' [Peter recalled]." - Headquarters 2007 CD liner notes
“You listen to Beatle albums and one of the things that makes them great is that they have found ways to use who they have to get what they want without asking anyone to do what they couldn’t do. That’s what makes group music happen. That’s all I ever hoped for, and I had it for like a minute on Headquarters.” - Peter Tork, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd. 2007 liner notes
“[Micky] did a great job [drumming] on Headquarters. [But] he wasn’t going to do it again, and there was nothing you could do [to change his mind]. We had to go back in the studio. He said, ‘Peter, you can’t go back.’” - Peter Tork, ibid
“Mike wrote the cello and horn parts [to ‘Shades Of Gray’]; he sang them to me and I wrote them on paper and we gave them to the musicians. I wrote a little piano lick at the top and played it. That was a record we created out of our own feelings. It’s like, not only are there shades of gray, God damn it, but what happened to the black and white? What happened to those clear-cut old ways that used to be?” - Peter Tork, When The Music Mattered (1984)