More than rich, more than famous, more than happy...I wanted to be great.

You've got to be able to hold a lot of contradictory ideas in your mind without going nuts. I feel like to do my job right, when I walk out on stage I've got to feel like it's the most important thing in the world. Also I've got to feel like, well, it's only rock and roll. Somehow you've got to believe both of those things.

I can sing very comfortably from my vantage point because a lot of the music was about a loss of innocence, there's innocence contained in you but there's also innocence in the process of being lost.

Some of the greatest blues music is some of the darkest music you've ever heard.

My only general rule was to steer away from things I played with the band over the past couple of tours. I was interested in re-shaping the Rising material for live shows, so people could hear the bare bones of that.

You get used to anything, sooner or later it just becomes your life.

That's what being a front man is all about - the idea of having something supple underneath you, that machine that roars and can turn on a dime.