“I hardly ever get asked about music. I do, however, get asked about the 'Addicted to Love' video and my suits on a daily basis.”
“I love Slipknot. But then I like Jao Gilberto... It's the spirit that comes through in music.”
“There's hardly anything I've ever done that's made me cringe; I've got pretty good pitch, for a start, so I'm not known for hitting bum notes.”
“I had an invitation to contribute a track to a Robert Johnson tribute album, and it was the first time I'd done anything like that in my life. I was not brought up with the blues or anything like that, and I really, really enjoyed it.”
“I loved the music, but the excesses of rock n' roll never really appealed to me at all. I couldn't see the point of getting up in front of a lot of people when you weren't in control of your wits.”
“I make up cassettes all the time - to take on the road with me - a song from this album, a song from that album. That's the way I listen to music; it's like one of those K Tel things: it's from all over. I listen to Fred Astaire, I listen to African folk music, I listen to Talking Heads.”
“I've got to the point where I just get on with it and the content of what I put on the records is determined from what I learn from the audience, from what works live, from what I want to hear when I go to a club or what I'd like to play when I get home.”
“It's marvelous when you visit Tokyo: they have these clubs, and they'll have 'Motown Night' or 'The Beatles - Totally Authentic and Live!' You know it's shrunk, but at least there's some sort of youthful figure to it. Whereas, the blues scene in Europe is more like, 'Here we go again.'”
“My listening changed when I heard music from Stax, Atlantic, Motown because by that age I thought anything that my parents listened to must be square. So I had to find my own rock n' roll, as it were, and I found it in black soul music.”
“My parents were part of a crowd that was attached to all the different navies stationed in Malta. When they would have parties in each other's houses, I would get taken along, and that's where I heard all this great music. I didn't distinguish particular styles; it was all music to me.”