I sometimes wish taste wasn't ever an issue, and the sounds of instruments or synths could be judged solely on their colour and timbre. Judged by what it did to your ears, rather than what its historical use reminds you of.

I fell in love with electronics, which for me was the terra incognita, because I had never heard such sounds. If you'd asked me 50 years ago, I would have said the future of music is only electronic, but I would have been wrong. I learnt how to produce everything I needed with live instrumentalists, so I don't need electronics.

I remember when I was in my late teens just getting rid of lots of records, realizing I only ever listened to them when I was reading, or watching TV, or doing something else.

I don't mind when people are telling me about their 1971 Firebird, but it's the same thing as people telling me about their car or something. It's fine if you have an interest. By talking with me, though, you could be interviewing a novelist about guitars. It's the same thing, except I don't write that well either.

I can remember soundtracks that you just can't separate from the film - It's just so intertwined, so important. Like the Hitchcock ones where they kind of inform each other and become this larger thing as a result.

I think I'll always feel a little in awe whenever I see someone in their 20s or 30s carrying a cello or violin case - because I know, if they're doing it professionally, how many years of practice have gone into being able to make music with them. And the sounds they can make just hit me very hard, and feel full of limitless complexity.

Rock music is quite big in India - but it mostly just replaces all the intricacies of Indian rhythms and Indian melody with lumpen rock drumming and power chords.