Any film I've made, I've only really begun to understand in the cutting room. That's when the story shows itself to you, like a wreck coming out of the sea.
I've dreamed a lot of things and a lot of them have come true. The Grammy nomination was the last thing on my list before I had to write a new one. So I'm working on a new one.
He does all research now, but he put me on some medication, Zoloft, and, I tell you what, a lot of people have had pros and cons about it, but it was my wonder drug.
I would much rather be a better mother or better human being than I would be a singer. Fortunately for me singing makes me a living.
People think unless you have loops and electronics and so on, you must be in your 50s. I quite like a lot of things that have loops and sequencers, but I couldn't really be bothered.
To say how you would react if you were really storming the charts and had people running around after you... who's to say how any of us would deal with that.
You just have to make sure you're writing about something that's true. It has to be honest and it has to have a real emotion behind it, regardless of where it's coming from.
Now I know what it's like to be a rock star. No, I didn't sleep with 5 groupies at once. But I was interviewed about 45 times in 5 days in 3 cities.
We had our unhappy moments but they got channelled into the kind of sadness that was necessary for singing a song about going nowhere. So it worked out very well I think.
Talking Heads, for me and Chris, was a very personal thing that we shared with a lot of people. In a way, I'm glad it's over, because it allows us to move beyond the restrictions that followed.
Richard Lloyd of Television is one of my favorite guitarists. His mentor was Jimi Hendrix when he was just 14. Jimi was always pounding everything he knew into that kid.
I am responsible for me. I can kind of take care of what I need to do and should do what I like to do.
Whether it is successful or not is not the exercise for me. It is not up to me. It is out of my hands now. I am not going to in two years have hindsight and say I made a big mistake.
It doesn't matter if people perceive me as being a little strange. I think overall, even when I am on stage, when people see me, I am setting an example.
Getting comments like that from even the young people at the shows who probably aren't singers, the girls who just tell me that I'm an inspiration to them, for one reason or another.
If you bleed Black Label and you're going to be a man, you gotta get up there and do what you gotta do every day, relentless and as tired as you can be.
I don't have lights, I don't have assistants, I just go and meet somebody and take a photograph. That's really basic, and that's how I used to work when I was 17 or 18 in Holland.
Each person makes their own choice, but my spirit is meant to stay in Iran, especially with the work that I do, and with the emotional connection I have with the country - with all its difficulties, this is why I stay.
Certainly since then many people have taken a lot of those ideas and ridden them for years and years and made careers out of them. Part of that is willingness to do the kind of work that I wasn't willing to do. Get into a van and cover the country.
I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say 'no' to other people with a clear conscience.
I have been going to Italy since 1980, but I always went to do work. I did not live overseas, because I do not like running around with everything I own in a paper bag.
