I don't like to go into the studio with all the songs worked out and planned before hand ... you've got to give the band something to use its imagination on as well. That can make a very ordinary song come alive into something totally different ... the X-factor - so important in rock and roll - which is the feel.

I'm all for a quiet life. I just didn't get one.

Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.

You can't accuse me of anything I haven't already confessed to.

One minute I'm standing at Ronnie Scott's getting a standing ovation and the next minute, I'm on a marble slab

We all have our own personal laboratories. Life is an experiment, and it's just a matter of getting the alchemical or chemical combination right.

I wouldn't warm to [Chuck Berry] even if I was cremated next to him.