When you're onstage with an electric band going through a massive P.A. system, it's very artificial. You can't really hear your own voice as it comes out of your mouth.

Music became a healer for me. And I learned to listen with all my being. I found that it could wipe away all fear and confusion.

I have no problem with religion, and I grew up with a strong curiosity about spiritual matters, but my searching took me away from church and community worship to the internal journey. Before my recovery began, I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter.

You were at school and you were pimply and no one wanted to know you. You get into a group and you've got thousands of chicks there.

It is painful to relive things that have caused emotional crises or whatever and find ways to express that musically.

My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity.

Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin.