The British invasion was the most important event of my life. I was in New Jersey and the night I saw the Beatles changed everything. I had seen Elvis before and he had done nothing for me, but these guys were in a band.

We never understood the concept of people going onstage and giving anything less than 100 percent. Maybe that's a blue-collar work ethic, but I call it just ethics.

I am interested in the interaction of a group of people who have a common goal, or a common obsession, each contributing something unique to make something greater than the sum of its parts. I don't know why, but from day one, that has interested me.

Rock music had become my religion. Radio my church. And these DJs my priests, rabbis and gurus.

The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist.

From the age of 14, 13, I guess I wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star. And that was it. I wanted to make a living playing rock 'n' roll, and it was a ridiculously impossible dream at that time. But it was kind of all I ever wanted to do. It's nice to do it.

Half of the modern world goes back as far as Pearl Jam. The real historians go back to U2. But they need to go back further. They have to go back to the '50s and '60s, where things started. That's how you get to be your own personality, by studying the masters. Rock and roll was white kids trying to make black music and failing, gloriously!