As a young person, I was on the road playing music, so I was getting new environments shoved in my face whether I wanted them or not.

What does New York sound like? For me, the Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost recordings on the Savoy label are the total embodiment of the New York music experience.

Never once have I thought that Social Security would be something that would ever be available to me.

With any advent in technology, any technological innovation, there is the good and the bad.

The visceral nature of hard rock music, the fact that you can have this sledge hammering sound - and that you can hook a lyric up and a feeling up to something and make the lyric jump into this machine that crushes. That has always been really attractive to me, that kind of power.

I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride.

I'm mellower now, I'm over 50. But I don't think I'm too mellow. I'm still angry at a lot of things.