I don't find the business easy. The moment you start talking about the business, you start sounding like someone in Spinal Tap.

I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest.

I just saw a recent television program about art, and it was saying how from the end of the Second World War, so much of what our culture is comes from not just the United States in general, but New York in particular. In my case, I can't imagine my life without the extraordinary bebop jazz revolution in New York in late '40s and '50s.

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.

Im not, by nature, a collaborator. My biggest influences were people like painters and poets. These are solitary workers.

I really liked them, not just Syd, but all of them. Roger was very important, I thought, his contribution. And so was Rick's organ playing. It was a good band. It became something else completely, obviously.

When I lost the use of my hi-hat and bass drum legs, I became basically a singer. I was a drummer who did a bit of singing, and then I became a singer who did a bit of percussion.