People say, oh it's a shame, you're not nostalgic about the '60s. Well actually, it's quite good, when you think of it. Wouldn't it be sad if I was sitting here wishing it back?

I only choose musicians who I think will emerge, can emerge, with their own character, while still going along with the tune in question.

It just doesnt mean anything to me, the high-profile, big money side of things. I just want enough to live on, and to be able to get on with what I do, and hang around my friends.

What keeps me going is a constant sense of disappointment with what I've already done.

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.

Because of my politics, people think I'm anti-American. But I was quite the reverse. What I don't like about the United States is when the government acts like an old, imperial 18th- or 19th-century European power.

I think it's hypocritical to complain about the rise of China. For 50 years, we were telling everybody in the world that the big threat was Communism, so now the countries that were Communists are now rampant capitalists - and they're doing very well, in some ways much better than the UK. Well, we asked for it. We told them that's what you have to do, and they're doing it, buying up your biggest hotels in New York. You have to laugh.