I just found over the years that it's very hard to change people's perception of what it is that you do.
I tried talking to Jesus, but he just put me on hold.
I had a very strange career. I mean I went from playing to 150,000 people in 1983/84. Three or four years later I was playing to four people, you know, in Melbourne. I thought - bit strange, you know bit odd, bit erratic.
I like to let the songs speak so that they can go through some kind of rebirth as you play them.
It's frustrating to do albums that you think are worth listening to, but it's just so difficult to cut through.
There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.
It strikes me there's a bunch of people in power who have really strong intentions of running the world and adjusting the world to exactly how they see it.
As you get older you don't want to just do the same thing, otherwise there's not much point. I think it's more or less trying to write things that, perhaps, say more by doing less, or you're always trying to refine things, make things a little simpler, a little more essential.
I'd love to have a hit record. I don't believe anyone that says they wouldn't like that.
I used to drink a lot. I had to stop drinking because it was getting the better of me, and I replaced that with really doing shows.
In certain ways I still feel like I'm finding my way. I feel pretty comfortable playing acoustic guitar and singing, but then I feel pretty good sitting on a reggae groove as well.
I do like writing songs in a band. When it's rock, it's such a different kind of dynamic, obviously.
Most people remember me for a couple of tunes.
It's great fun if you get a good piece of writing and you can pretend to be someone else, tell a story that needs to be told, make some kind of connection. I've always fancied myself as a leading man, but I really doubt whether anyone else sees me that way.
In Scotland, beautiful as it is, it was always raining. Even when it wasn't raining, it was about to rain, or had just rained. It's a very angry sky.
Sometimes there's a general arc that you want to try and get better the longer you do something.
I feel pretty comfortable in a lot of different musical styles. I like rhythm, and I like melody and so forth.
I had a very erratic career. I got very famous for a minute and then it just all went away, you know?
I just want to be a better guitar player, really.
I love going up the West Coast of the U. S. because it's one of my favorite parts of the world to tour.
I play in a lot of empty rooms.
I was brought up west southwest coast of Scotland and my mother and father had a music shop, and so I was surrounded by pianos and drums and guitars, and music, of course.
I tend to write pretty much by myself. I always did that anyway. I used to write with Ron Strykert 'cause he was the only guitarist and we played well together. We lived in the same place. I would play a certain style and he would kind of dance around what I did, in a sense. I learned from him and also vice-versa. With this band, I think I bounce ideas off everybody. Perhaps on the next album they'll be more collaborative stuff, but for the last 2-3 years, I've been pretty well writing by myself.
I got very famous for a minute and then it just all went away, you know? And for the last 20 years - you've got to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and then go on your merry way and start again, in a sense, and that's what I've been doing.
My mother features quite heavily in a lot of my songs.
