By the early '70s I had gotten reasonable and I started to get in hundreds of groups that rehearsed and never played at all. I mean, the most important thing was to look good and have a great name.

You watch the country-music awards that they show on the television, and you see country music has reached about 1985. It's all huge processed drum sounds and chiming chorus guitars and programmed synths bobbling along in the background.

My parents, especially my mother, were no influence on me whatsoever.

I actually think the creative process is finite, and I'm wondering whether I've retched everything up. Because it's like vomiting or shitting.

It was in San Diego and I was onstage and couldn't remember how to play the guitar properly. I was in terrible pain and my nervous system was just going wild, like somebody had just run a car over me.

I'm a big kid. I never lost my childlike appreciation of things. Too many people lock it out and throw their toys away and say, okay, I'm gonna grow up and be grumpy and miserable and not think about the magical side of things anymore -- and I can't seem to stop doing that.

I'm really interested in bands that sound nothing like anything I do or can do. That's what interests me.