I think I'm more influenced, just in general, not by blues artists, but more by stuff from Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder is probably my biggest musical influence of all. And Donny Hathaway.
Radio used to be dominated by Tom Petty and artists like that. If Tom Petty came out today, he'd be played on country radio - all that stuff would. I think the genre has opened itself up to more styles of country, and I think that's a good thing.
I love audio books, and when I paint I'm always listening to a book. I find that my imagination really takes flight in the painting process when I'm listening to audio books.
Ten years ago I was not heavily involved in the film world but on reflection it was a boom time with the mineral boom happening, so there was immense growth for industrial training films, documentaries to do with the mining, and the outback world.
I wish records got made faster and looser with less thought in them, but since touring is so much more profitable than records, you spend so much time on the road that it's hard to work on them. And the records get further and further apart.
In '38, this time I did a job for Mr. Stryker. I went on his payroll at about half the salary I was getting before, to cover what he called Harvest in Ohio.
The second time I was there I met Marcel Duchamp, and we immediately fell for each other. Which doesn't mean a thing because I think anybody who met Marcel fell for him.
The truth is, however rich people get, they hate paying tax. Some live abroad for a year, or years at a time just to avoid it. Bizarre really - desperate economic migrants are driven to leave their homeland because of poverty; tax exiles are driven o...
I've had this song in a drawer for a long time, maybe seven or eight years. Every time I'd do an album, I'd take it out and listen to it, and always liked what it had to say. Plus when Garth came in and sang on it, that made it really special.
A lot of people thought I wasn't doing anything because I was spending a lot of time socialising and going out, but I've always managed to get work actually done.
But slowly I began to use cameras and then think about what it was that was going on. It took me a long time, I mean I actually played with cameras and photography for about 20 years.
I'd been to Memphis before, but we stayed out of Memphis early on in the late 70s for obvious reasons. People were very sensitive about Elvis Presley, and my stage name obviously would be provocative to some people in that area at that time.
There's so much happenstance, so many accidents - stumbling into something and finding it interesting and living with it over time and building on it. It's okay to work from doubt. You need to be willing to not know.
The only really safe thing to do is to write a diary of where you've been, what time you went to bed, what you ate. If I wrote honestly about everything I think it'd be a disaster. It would cause a lot of trouble.
By the time I got writing 'Halcyon,' I was on a roll, and I realized I had so much to write about, I realized I had so much built up inside that I couldn't really alleviate before, and then all of a sudden it was like reservoir burst.
I'm really proud of 'Bright Lights' because I was still in the mind frame of my first album when I was putting it together, but next time I want to display something different. I don't want to be as young, immature and all about boys!
I record stuff all the time, like little vocal things. I write random things down... Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head and I record them, and that actually becomes a song quite a lot of the time.
The thing is, it really did take us too long to get these recordings done. We've had our rough times in the studio in the past, but after four weeks most of the material would have been recorded. This time it seemed like it just goes on and on.
I always work out of uncertainty but when a painting's finished it becomes a fixed idea, apparently a final statement. In time though, uncertainty returns... your thought process goes on.
I think when you follow a band, you're following a - and I don't like to use the term 'brand,' but you are following a kind of style, if you like. So I think you have to accept that there will be different people involved from time to time.
After tea it's back to painting - a large poplar at dusk with a gathering storm. From time to time instead of this evening painting session I go bowling in one of the neighbouring villages, but not very often.
