It's only the giving that makes you what you are.
Writing lyrics is part spontaneous, intuitive and part really thought through and carefully analyzed as you write it. It's a mixture of two approaches, and I imagine writing anything is like that, really. Some of it just flows, and you just go with it.
I think we always view people who make us feel uncomfortable and appear to intrude on our middle-class cozy space, we view them with, if not hostility, at least suspicion, discomfort, embarrassment.
If you're gonna use simile, analogy, metaphor, be descriptive and have some flowery adjectives and a few odd nouns and some engaging bits of dialogue or sentiment, then you're sort of writing a novel, really. But rock lyrics are not really known for their sophistication.
I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.
We do hear perhaps too many accolades generally aimed at people like Steve Jobs. We have to remember that there are other classic things in life that we undervalue and take them for granted. If you think of the classic lines of the modern jet aircraft, it's really been there since early World War II.
Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.
The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.
I'm really terrible with small children; they're small, noisy, irritating, damp and soggy.
I was always more interested in the ultimate live performance rather than the recording for its own sake. And, for the audience too, that thrill of - just being there.
Our politicians may fail us, but Status Quo always delivers on the promise.
I feel the audience has a right to know if some of the money they're spending is going to a certain cause, and reassuring them the money is going to where it's supposed to be going.
Seek that which within lies waiting to begin the fight of your life that is everyday.
I'm very motivated by the occasional creative payoff that comes when something goes really well, be it a song, a recording or performance. The payoff is enormous - when you get it. Most of the time, though, I'm filled with self-loathing and general frustration at the limitations I have as a musician.
I was not a great guitarist, so I sold my 1960 Fender Stratocaster in exchange for a Shure Microphone, made in Chicago, and a flute.
I don't think people really do listen. We plug into music, and we have short attention spans. We tend to download individual tracks from iTunes rather than a whole album. We buy music DVDs and watch them once, and then they disappear into a drawer, or we loan them to a friend, and we never watch it again.
It's nice to be recognized, but it's not great to have it too conspicuously recognized, if you see what I mean. Gold records on the wall, or titles after your name, it's just not something... I don't feel that great about it.
I make up my own mind in light of available facts, with my own experience and a sense of personal ethics.
All the time I was playing the flute, the lines, the solos, the riffs, the construction, were based on my guitar skills. I did not play the flute to exploit its natural faculties, but I used it as a surrogate guitar.
Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim.
