I was named after the next-door neighbor's German shepherd. It was either that or Cadillac Smith.

When I got out of high school I hit the road. I lived like a gypsy. Those were the best times of my life. I was living from club to club not knowing where my next meal was coming from. No credit cards, no apartment, no bills, no managers, just on the road with a truck and five guys.

I'm very close to my parents and we built a sailboat together when I was growing up. We're partners.

My father always said, 'It ain't bragging if it's true.'

Everything is disposable now: disposable lighters, disposable blades, disposable stars. They inflate you up for one big deal and then they look for someone else.

We were a really crazy band. This was in '73. I had my hair real short with a white stripe down the middle of my head. The guitarists had pink hair. We weren't playing CBGB's either, we were playing Statesborough, Georgia, for cowboys on penny beer night. We used to keep crowbars onstage when fights would break out. Those were really wild times.

I don't know a lot of guys who started out as a hard rock and roller with a white stripe in their hair. Suddenly I do a TV movie and I wake up the next day and I'm a teen idol, like I'd laid on a beach in California all my life waiting for that to happen.