I kind of disguise my limitations by hanging out with very talented people. The excitement of the collision between the microphone-twirling guy from 1966 to now is just a fantastic adventure. There aren't many of us left and I've managed to kind of cover my tracks pretty good.

I can find my way from 500 A.D. through to 1066 pretty well as an amateur historian.

Each album comes from definitely a different period in the evolution of each of us individually as creators and the role that we take in life. The external stimuli changed... so the songs are full of lots of different meanings.

No matter what we say, entertainers are usually quite insecure, wobbly characters underneath, and maybe that bit of glory or that bit of expression or whatever it is compensates in some area.

What I lack in style and craft, I can make up for in joy and enthusiasm. I like to be around people who are at ease so I like to think the 25-year-old would find me quite an easy-going late-middle-aged hippie.

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

My mother was a gypsy, and she had a lot of dark blood in her, and her hair was very, very thick - she couldn't even get a brush through it. So I have been very fortunate. And every time I go to cut it off, hairdressers refuse to do it.