When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I’d write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I’d sit there writing songs with my guitar.
I never get too many problems. You can never please everyone anyway, obviously. And some people take the easy route and just play the greatest hits, and their audience is happy to hear that as well, and that’s fine, but it wouldn’t please me. But it doesn’t trouble me.
Even somebody like The Black Keys or Royal Blood, they all have this original roots base to what they do.
I think the world is really small today, and fashion, from that end of it, it’s instantaneous everywhere.
Our campaigns have always been based on what we consider music icons that transcend generations and they’re not of the moment – they continue to evolve.
In the early-’60s, when you look at that period of time – up to the mod time – when everybody was wearing skinnier suits and skinny lapels and skinny ties – that came out of the States, and that was quite cool.
It’s always good to play New York. The Apollo is a great gig. I loved that.
When you look at so much of what we all love, there’s either soul-based to it, or it’s the blues. It’s really the beginnings of any kind of music. It really is; it all starts there. Because after that, it’s music of the moment.
I saw an interview with Keith Richards. He said, ‘How else could a kid in Dartford suddenly connect with and understand what Muddy Waters is singing?’ There’s a cultural difference, but there’s just something in that music that subconsciously or internally you just understand; it just makes sense.
The whole nostalgia thing, and just sticking with what you always liked and what you know and not taking a chance on something or expanding. I think especially after a certain age.
There’s such a wealth of great music, clothes or whatever. There is so much great stuff out there, that why would you not still be interested if you’ve grown up in that kind of culture?
So much is filtered by pop music today, because the music industry is driven by single, single, single, single, the next single, not the nurturing of artists and that kind of thing.
I have to do what I’m doing at the time. That’s the most important thing. You might lose some people along the way, and you might gain other people on the way, that’s just the way it is. But nevertheless, if you’re driven by something, there is no argument about it; that’s what you have to do.
It’s just something internal that says, ‘I’ve got to do this now. This is what I’m doing now.’
My own personal theory is that all popular music, in whatever form it is, to me, it all comes from Africa. Whether it’s filtered through America or whatever – African-American. But I still think there’s something in that roots music that’s very, very African, and I think that’s what unites people.
There’s always something in most world folk musics that always seems connected; whether it’s a bagpipe or a tambura, there’s always some sort of drone instrument, and there’s always percussion.
I think the biggest influence for me is when I hear a great piece of music, whatever the style, I’m kind of inspired by that greatness and I’m inspired to try and obtain something that comes close to that greatness.
I don’t like to get pigeonholed. I don’t like it when people think they have you sewn up.
I love soul music, that’s my real love in life and in whatever shape or form it is.
The way that house music has become so white and so sanitized over the decades and the fact it’s still going on, well I think it’s sad really, but at the time I really loved it. I loved all the black house music that was coming out of Chicago and New Jersey, which I just thought was really soulful.
I suppose it’s nice to have some surprise in life and to surprise yourself in life and see what else you can do.