When I was growing up, my idea of Led Zeppelin was all epic lasers, castles, and ten-minute drum solos - that sort of thing.

I am not scared of making mistakes.

I think where you play is important.

On a very technical level, I am a geek who is interested in the intricacy of rhythm playing, so I like comparing and working out its details.

There actually had been a tradition within English music of the '60s of people looking eastwards, maybe in quite a naïve way, but nonetheless, you had musicians like George Harrison or Bryan Jones recording the musicians of Joujouka in North Africa.

One of my interests is to understand what constitutes the vibe of a place and what makes one concert different from another.

I have a lot of experience in playing all sorts of venues. And one of my interests is to understand what constitutes the vibe of a place and what makes one concert different from another. You can't fully measure or calculate these things, yet they are absolutely evident once you're on stage.