I listen to the crowds [laughs]... I like Blind Melon very much.

It's crucial that I kind of keep up, without drifting into the backslapping land of cliche and lifetime achievement awards.

Since I was a kid, I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties, Chicago blues of the Fifties, West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana.

Now I'm a blithering oaf hanging on to the coatsleeves of commerciality.

The States were much more fun. L.A. was L.A. It's not L.A. now. L.A. infested with jaded 12-year-olds is not the L.A. that I really dug.

I don't want to scream 'Immigrant Song' every night for the rest of my life, and I'm not sure I could.

When you're 20 years old and you're making points with volume and dynamism, it's a fantastic thing to do.