I didn't enjoy 'Topographic Oceans' at all. It was a double album, and the truth is it was padded out, and I didn't like that. But I was a fan of Yes - still am - and as such, I'm entitled to say what I think.
The truth is, I probably would be dead if I had become a star, because at that point I was so closeted and so afraid of people of finding out I was gay. There was no telling what would have happened.
I'm the renegade of funk. I've made house, techno, rock, funk, reggae... That's why I've been on so many different labels.
I'm as old as the moon and the stars, and as young as the trees and the lakes. My style comes from looking at what came before me, and from visiting a lot of places.
People get caught up in worshipping certain rappers, or they try to demonise hip hop by looking at what certain rappers are doin' in their lives.
I don't want to continue to do what I did when I was 20. I would like to continue to develop myself and not continue to hang around with bands.
I only make storyboards for action scenes. Once you make a storyboard, you don't film; it can be a stiff move.
With photography, you are lucky if you get people to look at your pictures at some point. There's no formal way to show them.
I wanted to make a film as an artist, and it's going to have to find an audience, you know. I don't know how big the audience will be.
I feel a responsibility to myself, and not so much for the world at large. Because of my Calvinistic upbringing, I was trained to think that what you do has to have a purpose.
I am quite loud and bolshie. I'm a big personality. I walk into a room, big and tall and loud.
I'm really happy to be me, and I'd like to think people like me more because I'm happy with myself and not because I refuse to conform to anything.
As long as I know what key the solo is in, I try to kind of empty my mind and not think about anything. I just play without thinking.
I believe that the only way that the human race is gonna survive is to start colonizing space and setting up colonies on the moon, and then space stations.
I don't like to practice; I like spontaneity. When I don't play guitar for a week and I pick it up again, I play better.
In a very slow way, I found my path. Even now, I think, 'If I can't do it my way, I'd rather not do it.'
An album, for me, is not just a commercial product. It's about presenting a world to people, for them to explore and enjoy. How they do that is up to them.
Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every day American publishers.
We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.
French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.
In 1940 I came across a record by Jimmy Yancey. I can't say how important that record is. From then on, all I wanted to do was play the blues.
