So often, the singer is the sound of the record. People think they can cover anything, but the whole voice is the thing that's unrepeatable.

As long as ugly people are not on TV, you should only ever have interesting people on TV.

What was great about the 80s was that you still had record companies who would get behind developing you as an artist. You had these bonkers heads of department and A&R people who, even after a flop album, would let you make another one.

These days i tend to use one project I do as a kind of offshoot to the next.

I thought, I'm in my late 50s now, am I ever gonna get the chance to do another album again?

Don't sing a song you can't carry off, like some 16-year-old kid singing 'My Way'. That song's not for you. You haven't lived that.

I was very much a mess, as a person. I'd come from a very turbulent teenage life, with parents who had broken up in a very bad way, and a lot of illness at school.