Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release.
Anything that gives that kind of oneness with that commonly held experience, it makes you hum. It's really good.
Aside from just really typical recreational things, all I really do is music. Maybe that's one of the reasons it's so vital to me.
Being on a boat that's moving through the water, it's so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what's important and what's not.
Certain things in life are more important than the usual crap that everyone strives for.
For a while there, they were dropping like flies. It was a rough stretch. We just had to sort of slap ourselves and move forward.
Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to my audience that I'm as bald as a billiard ball!
How does someone bake a loaf of bread for the thousandth time? Somewhere in the middle of it, I remember where I was when I wrote the second or third verse, and I'll make an emotional connection.
I am myself for a living. I don't animate a character.
I believe 100 percent in the power and importance of music.
I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.
I can take criticisms but not compliments.
I don't know much about God. But if everything does originate with God, then certainly songs do as well.
I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.
I don't take compliments very easily. I think most musicians suffer from low self-esteem to some extent.
I don't think anyone really says anything new.
I finally have the possibility of being a decent husband and father. And I have every hope I'll do a better job.
I often question whether it's very evolved at the age 50 to be really interested in how people reacting to me. Should I still be doing this?
I sort of swapped addictions and got into physical exercise.
I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.
I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.
I think people are isolated because of the nature of human consciousness, and they like it when they feel the connection between themselves and someone else.
I think that we're all totally isolated beings and always will be.
I wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning, anxious.
I was a functional addict.
I was always drunk 'cause I didn't want anyone to hurt me. I was prepared to be hurt.
I was in chemical jail.
I'll be scratching around for weeks on end trying to find a way forward and getting nowhere, and then something will come out of the blue.
I'm doing work for charities that help people come off drink and drugs.
I'm in the studio now making a new album, so that will come out this summer, and we'll tour it. We'll take it around the world.
I'm not changing the world. I don't have anything to prove.
I'm probably genetically predisposed to substance abuse, so I didn't stand a chance. It felt like it solved all kinds of problems for me.
I'm very unstable; there's no stability in a musician's life at all. You live on a bus or on the road hand to mouth and you don't know where your money's coming from.
If I were to try to identify a turning point I'd say that was it - getting clean.
If It's us and some huge bloody band that sells bucket loads of records, we give 'em a total run for their money if not blow them clean out of the water.
If the gig's going really well, I'm incredibly happy on stage and really feel good about my life and things.
If you feel like singing along, don't.
If you think my music is sentimental and self-absorbed, I agree with you.
If you're an addict, it controls your life and your life becomes uncontrollable. It's boring and painful, filling your system with something that makes you stare at your shoes for six hours.
In this industry people can say things that hurt you a lot, but I guess It's about having an understanding that we are all responsible for our own well being.
It does wreak havoc on having home stability. I did have a really stable relationship for about 10 years, but I didn't respect it. I didn't see what I had till I lost it.
It is a process of discovery. It's being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way.
It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before.
It's hard to find a way forward. When you're 18 it happens in huge chunks every day, but after 20 years, growth is much more costly.
It's probably foolish to expect relationships to go on forever and to say that because something only lasts 10 years, it's a failure.
It's strange, but we turn up to places and It's always sold out. It's like, where did this lot come from? It's really weird.
It's very easy to do a six-week tour, playing every night, going through all these strange little towns. Bands roll up, play, roll off again.
Knowing when to quit is probably a very important thing, but I just am not ready.
Music is like a huge release of tension.
My family was kind and smart enough to put me in a nuthouse for a while. It allowed me to think of myself as different and to realize I had to find my own way.
My main thing was drink, since as far back as I could get drunk, I did. I like escaping reality. This is a recurring thing for me.
My upbringing was bad, my Mum and dad were fighting a lot. It felt good in front of the piano.
No one has the power, or the right, to take anything away from us.
Once you get that two-way energy thing going, everyone benefits hugely.
People should watch out for three things: avoid a major addiction, don't get so deeply into debt that it controls your life, and don't start a family before you're ready to settle down.
Sobering up was responsible for breaking up my marriage. That's what it couldn't stand.
Somehow it helps just to take something that's internal and externalize it, to see it in front of you.
Sometimes I worry about repeating myself and doing the same thing over and over and over again.
That's the motivation of an artist - to seek attention of some kind.
The music industry's really difficult.
The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
There were about five times in my life when I should have been out of here. I probably wiped out a good percentage of my brain.
There'll come a writing phase where you have to defend the time, unplug the phone and put in the hours to get it done.
Time will take your money, but money won't buy time.
Too many musicians play it safe. They have to find it within themselves to go further and further and not fall by the wayside.
We all have to face pain, and pain makes us grow.
We signed to Polydor. They were very controlling. We had to work with musicians we didn't want to work with, so we did this project under a pseudonym.
When I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible for about six months. The only thing that gave me any real relief was strenuous physical activity.
When you get a considerable amount of pain that knocks you sideways, two years later, you'll come out of it knowing a bit more about yourself.
Women just say, Where are you? You're not here for me, for your family. You're out doing what you do. As soon as you go out that front door to go up on stage, women can't feel secure.
You have to choose whether to love yourself or not.
You have to examine what state I was in when I got married. It's easy to say the drugs were responsible.
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