What anybody else thinks about you is really of no consequence. It's what you think of yourself.

I saw what Purple meant to people and I still hear it now when I'm in Europe. I'm always shocked that I'm still asked about Purple because it was such a long time ago.

With Whitesnake it would have been inappropriate for me to have played Deep Purple songs, although I did at the beginning because I didn't have enough Whitesnake songs.

In the last couple of years I've been facing down a lot of the demons of the past and trying to find out, who I am, It's something I think I'll be doing for the rest of my life.

When I was very, very young, seven years old, I heard there was school where you could go to learn to draw. That was my absolute driven passion, to become an artist or a painter. So the romantic realist in me, I studied to be a graphic design artist and an art teacher.

I've always loved music, very simply, as a vehicle to express myself and that hasn't changed.

I've never been uncomfortable putting my heart on display, my feelings on display, certainly with an audience.