I spent 20 years of my life building up Queen, and now Im spending years of my life trying to get away from it.

I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement.

Mantovani was a great influence on me.

I go through major crises every few months, but then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal

People have been rumouring that Queen are going to split up for the last eight years at least. I've got some great cuttings at home from people saying 'One thing is certain, Queen will no longer exist in a year's time.' And that was in 1973.

I never took sheet music seriously. I could do better myself just by listening to other people and using my own intuition.

Every time I listen to Jeff Beck my whole view of guitar changes radically. He's way, way out, doing things you never expect.