I have to accept the fact that I was putting out records that reviewers were going to get an image from.

You are who you are. It doesn't make any point to go out and buy the Top 40 albums to see what those acts are doing. There's no point in hearing what's going on. The only thing that's going on is what's been going forever. It's just that some people dig that bag and some people dig the other bag.

When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn't the distance or the separation that there is now.

I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.

[Rock 'n' roll] music started out with some cat banging a log with a couple of pieces of stick. He sent a message across a river and although the cat on the other side receiving the message didn't know the exact words, he did understand basically something about what was being communicated.

I educated myself. To me, school was boring.

I'd come to the point where I wasn't really putting out creatively. I didn't seem to have anything to say in that period of time after the '74 tour. There was nothing definite that I wanted to record.