I was getting Monkees Monthly and there was a competition to draw a Monkee. I did a caricature of Micky Dolenz and won 10 pounds-a fantastic sum of money for me then. I bought a secondhand tape recorder, which further launched me. They've been very responsible for me getting started.

You know, I was such a big Beatles fan, and when I'd buy a new album I'd invariably hate it the first time I heard it 'cause it was a mixture of absolute joy and absolute frustration. I couldn't grasp what they'd done, and I'd hate myself for that.

I actually got really petrified by the thought of people seeing me.

Where I've arrived now is the product of mixing the very straight with the very exploratory; there's a fine line between the two, although it tends to be getting straighter and straighter because my songwriting is getting better.

People will always be tempted to wipe their feet on anything with 'welcome' written on it.

The early gigs were pretty panicky - and great, sweaty fun. We were brand new to most people, and they were willing to take anything brand new, for the first time in years.

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.