I mean, in some cases with libel laws, you know, they can write things about people who have no course of action, because they can't afford to take legal action against them.

I was incredibly confident on stage because that's where I loved to be. But offstage, there was no balance. I was a little shy kid that went onstage. And I always said, cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people. But then it became the drug that closed me down. So it started out by making me talk to everyone, and then ended up by me isolating myself alone with it; which is the end of the world, really.

I never really made a full album in Los Angeles before.

I love to work. It fascinates me. And I love seeing who's coming up, who's got the charisma to last, who's got the intelligence to move on to other things. I'm so glad now that I'm stuck behind the piano, because when you're getting older it's very hard to waddle around the stage.

...I'm so over the tattoos and the T-shirts and rings through the noses. It's not pretty, it's not pleasant, it's not exciting. Please stop it now.

In my 20s I was so ignorant about drugs, and so naive. I mean, my band was smoking marijuana for years; I didn't even know what a joint was. And I'd never seen a line of cocaine in my life. And I don't know whether it was bravado or - OK, I'll join in. But my stupidity, I had a line of coke, and that started the whole process.

I spent the last week of Ryan's life in Indiana, Indianapolis, with Jeanne and Andrea, Jeanne, his mother, Andrea, his sister, and some other beautiful people who came. And it taught me a lesson.