Musician

I had to put me foot down with the first record company. It was about 1975, when singers were being given names like Gary Glitter and Alvin Stardust, so they wanted to call me Benny Santini just because me dad's an Irish-Italian with an ice-cream business!

I actually, truly do love my family. It's not a public relations exercise.

I do have this big weakness: I over-cooperate with people. People say it's because I'm Irish-Italian from Middlesbrough, and me dad was always like that, y'know - 'Get the job done.'

When I came down south and was put together with big producers, I always thought that they knew best. I never thought for a minute that they might have another agenda.

The thing that frustrated me is that some people think success is all measured by money.

I live halfway between London and the airport, which means I can operate my European career and get home every night. It costs a lot of money, but it's worth it.

The record companies didn't want 'Stony Road,' and it ended up being a gold album. They didn't want 'Blue Guitars,' and we did 165,000 books.

I'm never happy with anything I've done! If you sat me down and played everything I've ever recorded, I'd just sit there going, 'No... that could be better.'

You can't have F1 without Ferrari - you just can't have it. It's part of the theme that is the red car, and a lot of it is to do with the colour.

I never got the chance to put drums on 'Watersigns,' because the company was in a rush to release it - and me.

I didn't have any aspirations to be famous at all.

The operation left me very emotional. I cry a lot anyway. I've always been the type to feel hurt easily, but now I hit rock bottom.

Touring is easy. My wife will be with me a lot of the time. We get spoilt rotten, and all I have to do is go on stage in wonderful places and play music.

That's why I've never made a live album - I can't bear listening to myself!

I'm lucky to be alive. I'm one of only 40 people who have survived the surgery I had, and when you've been that close to dying, you re-evaluate what's really important to you - and it's nothing to do with fame and money.

Back in 1997, I got to race a Ferrari at the famous Monza circuit in Italy - a dream come true.

Ferraris are lovely cars, but I just don't want to be seen in them.

I read an article about 60 being the new 30 the other week, and I think it's very true. Our generation has not done what previous generations did and just got old and sat in a corner.

Nothing was ever clean enough for my father. You could never clean as good as he could; you could never clean as fast and as thorough as he could.

My ambition, a long time ago, was to be a film music writer. A compromise then was to be the guy who wrote songs for a band and played slide guitar. Then the singer didn't turn up for an audition, and I was the only one who knew the words. That was it - bingo! Life took a different course.