I've been to the Reading festival twice before-as a punter, though I stayed backstage in the hospitality tent!

Teachers need to be more inspirational. But it's also up to engineering to make itself more interesting.

I guess it was the first time I really thought about leaving. I don't just mean Iron Maiden, I mean quitting music altogether. I just thought, 'Nothing is worth feeling like this for.' I began to feel like I was a piece of machinery, like I was part of the lighting rig.

I guess that the salary that they get when they are working with me is, like, it beats working at McDonalds, so it has got some things going for it.

In the days when Glastonbury was an alternative festival, it was quite interesting. Now it is the most bourgeois thing on the planet ... we'll leave the middle classes to do Glastonbury and the rest of the great unwashed will decamp to Knebworth and drink a lot of beer and have fun.

Well, yeah, sometimes I get a little too creative.

Anybody auditions for X-Factor it's because they want to be famous, not because they are artists.