I come from a very small island which is packed with people. I mean, jam-packed with people. I've lived a life which has been pretty much full up with ambition, ideas, stimulus, creativity, some negativity, which I try to avoid. Austin is a great sort of stepping-off point, if you like. I'm from a temperate climate.

I can't regret until the end. And I won't regret then, either.

There have been people I've warmed to over the years but, as the situation I'm in is so fleeting and transient, I've always known it's going to be over kind of real quick.

I'd break out in hives if I had to sing (`Stairway to Heaven') in every show. I wrote those lyrics and found that song to be of some importance and consequence in 1971, but 17 years later, I don't know. It's just not for me. I sang it at the Atlantic Records show because I'm an old softie and it was my way of saying thank you to Atlantic because I've been with them for 20 years. But no more of `Stairway to Heaven' for me.

I was competing for attention in a four-piece band that was phenomenal, and I was trying to attack the blues from a kind of white English viewpoint as a singer.

Each album has a different atmosphere. The third album and Houses of the Holy seem to be the two albums that people didn't get off on quite as strongly as the other ones. But I think they contain the basic ingredients for the further pursuance of what we're doing... the turning point to relieve the tedium of repetition.

Finding another way to do what I know I can do pretty well. A way that stimulates me. I'm always on some sort of learning curve. If I can continually be surprised then I'm alert.