I always wanted to know what the music behind some music was, or where it came from, and that gave me a point of reference for understanding the music I was listening to.

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.

The human condition is what it is. We can see beauty and wonder in the world, but we also face imminent death and uncertainty, and we often need to sidestep the idea of time and communicate with each other, not with words but with a sense of community and union. I don't want to make an overreaching statement, but I think that's the function of culture.

I don't want to copy the people I admire - I'd rather find out what inspired them and try to find my own way through it.

In a lot of African instruments, you find a rattle, and sound engineers have a hard time making sense of it.

The closer you get to the source, the more you begin to understand its essential nature.

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