I play Irish popular music, yeah? Calling it folk is like putting it in a box. It's a living tradition, you know?

What I do is I'm a bandleader, frontman, entertainer.

I'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure . . .

The only politician anybody ever believed was Kennedy, anyway. Kennedy, Martin Luther King - civil rights always turns out in bloody war. Where's his dream now? When is a change going to come - as Sam Cooke said - for blacks in America? Anyone who does tell the truth gets a bullet in the head, y'know what I mean?

I hate the bloody highways. I hate hamburgers, I hate Greyhound buses. I'd have liked to have been in America during the Jazz Age, or the Golden Age of Hollywood.

I'm not so much a rock star, d'ya know what I mean? I play Irish music. There's really no age when you stop playing Irish music. Even if I retired from playing onstage, I'd still be singing in pubs.

My dad has no control over who works with me. Me, me and me alone has to take responsibility for anything.