In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event.

That whole thing of replicating what others do is a siren call. The sirens lure you to the rocks of unoriginality.

Ive got Arabic music in my blood.

People are disappointed when they hear my American accent because they regard 'The Police' as an English band but I've clung to my American-ness all the way.

Drummers shouldn't just think of themselves as drummers. If you're going to be a musician, you should expand your horizons, compose things, and work with other instruments.

Don't believe everything you see on VH1.

I don't have any sympathy for the subject matter, [but] I have great respect for rap artists. In fact, not for the rap artists, but the people who make the music over which they rap. Rap music - the music itself is incredible - but [the people that make the music] are hardly ever credited.