Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and I wanted to be a hard rock band - we wanted to play rock and roll only.

I can never remember what I do even in the studio.

Sometimes if I'm not playing well on stage, I'll purposely play even worse; I'll tear it apart, because I'm so disgusted with what I'm playing that I'll go the wrong route: instead of trying to make it better, I'll go the other way and really make myself sound bad. Which is a kind of a strange outlook I suppose, really.

I'm definitely not a guy that comes in the dressing room saying, "Hey, everybody, what a wonderful life." I'm usually brooding about something I think is wrong. I care so much about getting the music right, and if I think someone's slacking I get very upset about that. I just can't go on stage and say, "Another day, another dollar," which I've heard a few people say: I can't go along with that at all. It's got to be as good as you can do - to my own detriment.

Pete Townshend used to crash chords and let the guitar feed back. He's overrated.

I have never met one person who likes Grand Funk.

I can do the old hand vibrato just fine, but I like attacking the strings.