There are so many times in one's life, when one feels he has nothing more to offer. But no, my river has not run dry.
The basis of everything that I plugged into when I was younger was blues, and it always stayed with me.
OK, I've had a life of sort of success, some people know who I am but a lot of people don't. I feel the need to change that still.
Blues was made for the recessed.
Britain, and my hometown, will always be with me wherever I go and whatever I do - but I prefer to live in California.
I used to hang out a lot in jazz clubs, and the groups took to a kid like me who wasn't afraid to get up and sing with a jazz band. Then I started to hang out in rock clubs and learned to carry off different styles.
I look upon The Animals, they were a great band initially, we left our mark, but thing was it was a band that couldn't live up to its name so I soldiered on. On one level, it was devastating for a while. On another level, maybe I should thank them for helping me make my own way in my own career.
I always wanted to be a Californian. In my wildest dreams, I always liked California - it's the place where oranges grows on trees! Fruit just falls off the trees.
In the day-to-day life of a traveling musician, it's easy to miss so many details. The world goes by at high-speed; it will take your breath away.
I'm really still a child of the Forties. I still think about it a lot, about the repercussions of armed conflict. Until 1953 we had rationing. We couldn't buy meat, we couldn't buy pleasurable goods like cigarettes and sweets. I didn't starve - my family were lucky - but I knew what it was like standing in line waiting for foodstuffs.
I was in college, and very disappointed. I majored in commercial art and interior design for three or four years. At that time, it seemed the thing I really wanted to do, production design, just wasn't available in the U.K., so I turned to music.
I have a life beyond performance. I love it, and it probably is the better part of my life, but I do have another life.
Eventually I would like to reach the stage where I don't have to write about love and kisses and all that stuff. I wish I could write about really ultimate things. That's where I think all of us want to go, really. All the groups seem to be heading towards a kind of pop music that deals with ultimate things.
My activism was, and is, unknown, unannounced, but somehow effective.
The rock biz is the low end of the creative world. Faces come and go so fast.
Have you seen 'American Idol' lately? I'm sure that some kids somewhere at this moment are thrashing themselves silly over what they call 'Rock n' Roll.
Recording - once something's done, it's done, there's not much you can do about it. It's out there and you just have to pray to the gods.
I've got a great dislike of reunions. It's a little like trying to go back and relive the best parts of your life, but you can't do it. Nothing is ever the same.
Longevity is something I never gave a second thought to. I guess it's the shadow of growing up in post WWII, but I never believed I would live past 20. Here I am though... a senior citizen... my voice and heart are stronger than ever, but boredom is the greatest enemy so I have to be careful not to slip over the edge.
