It was a great thrill just to know Roy Orbison, so to play, sing, write hit songs with him and have him in The Traveling Wilburys was beyond my wildest dreams!

It was dark and misty for 2 weeks, and I didn't come up with a thing. Suddenly the sun shone and it was, 'Wow, look at those beautiful Alps.' I wrote 'Mr. Blue Sky' and 13 other songs in the next two weeks.

To me, making records isn't work.

I like the natural sound of a room. All the rooms have their own sound, so it's a matter of putting it where you like and seeing what it sounds like.

It all comes down to what you truly love doing, and what I love doing is overdubbing and making new sounds out of things that are sometimes quite ordinary on their own, but when you put them together, they make something new--or something that sounds new. Just discovering things like that musically is a pleasure.

When you do a song new live on stage, it's kind of a bit weird until it gets worn in, you know, like oiled up a bit. It's still a little bit stiff until you really thrashed at it for a few weeks.

It was so simple in the old days. You put out an album, people promoted it, it got in the charts, and you had a hit.