When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent’s disapproval.
I try to become a singer. The guitar has always been abused with distortion units and funny sorts of effects, but when you don’t do that and just let the genuine sound come through, there’s a whole magic there.
I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever, as long as you don’t have too much of it.
I was interested in the electric guitar even before I knew the difference between electric and acoustic. The electric guitar seemed to be a totally fascinating plank of wood with knobs and switches on it. I just had to have one.
If you were to plot my success or failure, it goes, it very seldom stays on a high plateau.
As long as there’s something original going on, that’s all that matters.
It’s a diabolical business. I can’t imagine how hellish it must be to be hounded like Amy Winehouse and people like that. I have a little peripheral place on the outskirts of celebrity, when I go to premieres and that sort of stuff, which is as close as I want to get.
I never really felt at home with that – the headbands, the roses, the feet, the peace sign, all that bollocks. That wasn’t me at all; I felt like a fish totally out of water during the mid-’60s thing.
I’ve tried to become a singer with the guitar and not let any technological licks run my life. Just write the licks and play them as best as I can as a part rather than ad libbing.
I would have loved to have been two people, but I was determined not to devote my entire life to my career.
If you can make it sound exciting with a joke drum machine, you know you’ve got something.
I’m happy in English studios. I just feel like there’s no pressure anywhere.
If you don’t have an album or you don’t have any tune, you can’t start.
At the end of the day, there are a hell of a lot of notes being played out there and I defy the average middle-American or the average punter to differentiate between them.
I wanted to be in Rolling Stone number two with a tomorrow feel to it, like an experimental Rolling Stones with Jagger singing.
London is a dead duck, as far as innovative new music is concerned, unless you want to have your head blown off with some outrageous, rubbish, pounding dance music.
I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.
I’m a very emotional person. If I’ve got something on my mind, that would stop me from giving my best.
I play purely from the heart, y’know, and so if it doesn’t work the first couple of hours, forget it.
Some are skeptical. My mom thought the guitar was going to fizzle out in two weeks, that it was just a fad-and that was in 1958.