I was obsessed with politics in the '80s. I've recovered and I'm feeling much better now, thank you.

Timing really is nearly everything. And what it isn't, circumstance makes up for.

The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest.

I think it's important that all 50 years of rock 'n' roll live in the same place, because it's all connected.

Rock'n'roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community.

I know what it takes to make a band, how they should interact, what makes a record sound like it's a band - everything having to do with a band, I happen to be into.

It's become uncool to play other people's songs, and that's absurd. It has got to change. It's the reason why everything's so mediocre.