When we made that album with Gary Moore, I was still kind of searching for the right direction for myself. Although the music is quite good the direction was like a box of fireworks that caught light all at the same time.
I have grown up but that should be a positive thing. When you look at a photo album it's lovely to remember being so young but it's also good to know you grew up!
For me to create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish. But I get to some really good stuff after a while.
When you write an album and you're writing about relationships, the stuff that I've been through in my relationships, 99 percent of it is really good, but it's that one percent that always inspires you to write a song.
I was working with Bill Graham management at the time and it was obvious to everyone concerned that albums like Open Fire, while they were good for me creatively, were not going to be commercially successful.
I wouldn't just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.
I missed the country sounds on the radio. I missed the Deana Carters and the old Faith Hill songs that are more richly country and not so highly pop. So I really wanted that to be on my first album.
Bollywood is huge. Anything that's made in large quantity will evidently overshadow others. But that won't stop artistes from making albums. A person who has faith in his music will go ahead.
The funny thing is, the music that I'm writing now is probably some of the most cutting edge we've ever done. The music that I'm thinking about putting on our next album.
One of my favorite songs from the album is a song called 'For Better or Worse,' and it's basically about unconditional love, which is, I'd say, an ongoing theme in my personal life.
I knew I was going to do a country album one day. But I was just trying to figure out for the life of me, what we were going to do to make it different, unique.
We got a little waylaid along the way. The whole problem started about 10 years ago with management and legal battles, then still trying to make albums while I was doing all of that.
I love what I do, and I think I've appreciated it more throughout the years, but just to keep on traveling, keep on doing shows, and hopefully making better albums. That's always my goal.
When you get to the 35-year mark in your career, you make albums for your fans to love you more, so they don't forget about you.
With the first album, I wanted to do so many different things, and I was fighting with myself to try and see if I was worthy enough to do it.
Steve Jobs was a real rock star to me. I looked forward to his products like people look forward to albums.
I've never listened to an album once I've finished it. All I hear is what I should've done different. I beat myself up over it.
For anybody who writes, very often, when you finish an album, you are so done with it. You've been listening in minutia, in super-focus.
Well, I think that it is complicated in that the first four albums were all with Universal so they have the rights to that and therefore it is a lot easier for them to do that period.
For many, an album is no longer a considerable feat of an artist but just sounds to be half-listened to while one is halfheartedly engaged in something else.
When I used to put an album out, I knew everyone on the charts. There weren't that many bands. Now, I couldn't even name half the new groups.
