I'd been collecting different ethnic instruments here and there, and then I started making little bell type stuff, looking for weird little sound toys.

Some of the stainless steel discs that I play, I cut myself from pieces of stainless steel that I found. I don't make as many as I used to, because you can't get into surplus and scrap yards as easily anymore.

I've always been interested in finding out more about the properties of acoustics.

I started working with synthesizer players, and I had to find new instruments. I needed a more complex sound, so I went to a surplus place and got a bunch of hard plastic stuff and stainless steel stuff, and that stuff worked. So from that point on, from the 70s on, I've made instruments.

I lose all track of time on that level. I used to have a really good sense of time. I didn't need a clock to play, and I had a sense of when five, ten, twenty minutes had passed. Now I can only play with a clock.

I'd been collecting different ethnic instruments here and there, and then I started making little bell type stuff, looking for weird little sound toys.

It's really hard to find materials. Also, prices of metal have gone completely through the roof, insanely expensive. And if you go to a dictionary and look up starving artist, you'll see my picture.