Drummers get bored. You tell them to play something simple, and it gets more complicated as they do it. If they're not a composer, if they don't have any kind of investment in the music, they'll just add a bit there and another bit there, and you think no! Don't do that. So you end up using a drum machine.

Each thing leapfrogs. I do a Genesis project - like now, we're just finishing off an album - and then by the time the album is doing its thing, I could do nothing or I could do a film.

To be honest, I couldn't hold a conversation with anybody in any language other than English - and that's a struggle sometimes!

There's something perverse isn't there, if you're playing in front of 100,000 people and there's 2000 people down the front who don't like, you think: what is it that they don't like?

You know, a song is like a kid. You bring it up. And sometimes something you thought was going to be fantastic, by the time it's finished, is a bit of a disappointment...Beyond a certain point, the music isn't mine anymore. It's yours.

As soon as you start making a record, things start getting lined up: the promotion, possibly even a tour.

If it's the beginning of something - like an album, I'm working on the lyrics and I take a walkman and headset.