Recording - once something's done, it's done, there's not much you can do about it. It's out there and you just have to pray to the gods.

This really blew my mind, the fact that me, an over fed, long haired, leaping gnome, should be the star of a Hollywood movie.

OK, I've had a life of sort of success, some people know who I am but a lot of people don't. I feel the need to change that still.

I'm really still a child of the Forties. I still think about it a lot, about the repercussions of armed conflict. Until 1953 we had rationing. We couldn't buy meat, we couldn't buy pleasurable goods like cigarettes and sweets. I didn't starve - my family were lucky - but I knew what it was like standing in line waiting for foodstuffs.

I tried to reach the combatants with my music. I tried to turn my anger into something positive. Myself, and others like me, just tried to keep rock and roll alive.

I used to hang out a lot in jazz clubs, and the groups took to a kid like me who wasn't afraid to get up and sing with a jazz band. Then I started to hang out in rock clubs and learned to carry off different styles.

Have you seen 'American Idol' lately? I'm sure that some kids somewhere at this moment are thrashing themselves silly over what they call 'Rock n' Roll.