Rock is gut level and it just gets to people. I think there's far too much emphasis on intellectualization, especially in rock 'n' roll which is a primitive form.

I find it extremely difficult talking about my songs because there's so many different things that can make a song come together.

What I like is natural music. It's like I was born with a gift to do something naturally, which I have no choice but to followup on.

When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.

No guru, no method, no teacher, just you and I and nature, and the father in the garden.

I haven't really heard much that's impressed me the way it was when I first heard Ray Charles or somebody like that. That was really an impression.

[Jean-Paul] Sartre was a throwback to the existential period. I'm not really so much into that these days. I went through a period of going over things and looking at them again to see what they were. But I'm into psychiatry type things. I'm into philosophy. I'm into that sort of thing.