I think that prosecuting some college kid because she shared a file is a lot like sending somebody to Australia 200 years ago for poaching his lordship's rabbit. That's how it must seem to poor people who just want to watch a crappy movie for free after they’ve been working themselves to death all day at Tesco or whatever, you know.

At university, I had been obsessed with reading about the lives of Rimbaud and Baudelaire, and I was steeped in the crazy poets, and I came to view my early subjects through that prism.

The problem being: for years I was struggling - first to prove that I had any talent, then to create some skills and finally to fulfil it reasonably. But then once I got there it was, "OK. I did that, but I want to be happy." And that's a whole different deal. It's kind of like a dance. Being active seems to help. I'm 70, so sometimes a little voice is going, "Just take it easy".

Musical types tend to combine the burden of the author with the burden of the actor.

Miami's not anybody's poor cousin. It's an aspiration to live in this town, not something you have to do to promote yourself like some of the larger cities.

I was feeling that I was the in the dead-end circuit from 1980 to 1983, and I didn't know what else to do. I remember doing a show in some college town, in a tiny club, and afterward some fans came back. I thought I had done good gig and they were going to tell me that.

How am I going to listen to that horrible noise I make without a gram of coke and a couple of double Jack Daniels?