My nerves before a gig got worse; I had terrible bad nerves all the time. Once we started... I was fine.

Mistreating your drum set is just one step below child abuse

With Zeppelin, I tried to play something different every night in my solos. I'd play for 20 minutes but the longest ever was 30 minutes. It's a long time, but whenI was playing it seemed to fly by.

I have no qualm about the quality of the contemporary repertory.

I've always been obsessed with drums. They fascinate me. Any other instrument - nothing. I play acoustic guitar a bit. But it's always been drums first and foremost. I don't reckon on this Jack-of-all-trades thing. I thing that felling is a lot more important than technique. It's all very well doing a triple paradiddle - but who's going to know you've done it? If you play technically you sound like everybody else. It's being original that counts.

Nowadays you can't be loud enough!

Brushes..? Nah. Hit 'em as hard as you can.