I like to think of myself as a combination of Sid Vicious and Virgil Thompson

In the present world, this technological, psychotic, politicised, nonsensical world, you have to believe that the good guys are going to win! That evil will be banished somehow!

I'm very blessed, mainly because even though my family is mostly in show business, it's really centered around music. My parents were very successful in many ways, but they weren't necessarily top of the charts. We were never wealthy because of music. We always had to work and we always had to struggle a little bit, and I think at the end of the day that's been very good for me, because I have a sense of it being very ephemeral.

Once illness strikes, you realize there's not a lot of time for you to do what you really need to do. And there's no time like the present.

I find so many songwriters today are missing an element ... either the production is amazing but the songs aren't, or it's the other way around.

I think my imagination and my passions are still firing away, but it's really the body that starts to make up the rules. It's not a major problem; it's just when you get a little older you realize how much your body thanks you when you are good to it.

Prima Donna is my kind of love song to opera but it's not the full experience.