I've never regretted anything I've ever done.

I'm obsessed - not just interested, obsessed - with folk music, street music, the parallels between a country's street music and its so-called classical and intellectual music, the way certain scales have travelled right across the globe. All this ethnological and musical interaction fascinates me. Have you heard any trance music? That's the thing.

The term "genius" gets used far too loosely in rock & roll.

The way I see it, rock & roll is folk music. Street music. It isn't taught in school. It has to be picked up.

The only term I won't accept is "genius."

Many people in the neighborhood liked hip-hop and house music, and I couldn't play that. You can't perform that on guitar or drums, which was what I was playing, at the time. But, I got so much from mariachi bands that were constantly playing in the neighborhood.

I like change and I like contrast.