Musician

We come from a generation where the music was very innovative, a lot of it coming out of blues and influenced by blues: the idea was that you would jam on things, and you'd try things out. You took a journey, and you took a left turn, and you experimented live right there in the moment.

One doesn't have to sit through exams and go to universities to play rock n' roll.

There are just so many people making music out there. I've always promoted the idea that everybody needs to make music. I think the more music there is in the world, the better, but it does make it highly competitive.

I just sort of grew up with music always in the background like a soundtrack. And it really hit me hard when The Beatles came along, like so many people. That got me started digging back further to Chuck Berry.

The simpler the message, the broader the meaning, in many respects. I think about a song like Free's 'All Right Now,' which I'm often asked about. It's that sort of song.

Nobody should attempt to do Freddie Mercury impressions.

If not for music in my life as a young person, who knows where I would have focused my energy.

The first record I bought was actually Booker T and the MG's 'Red Beans and Rice.'

Music takes me where I go. I'm always open to wherever the journey will take me.

After leaving Queen, I decided to stop doing those mega-four-month tours. I go out for a month, and my dog recognizes me when I come home.

I have a secret weapon. My wife Cynthia is very good at keeping me in shape. She's very good for me. She's the best thing that happened to me.

I get a bit quick-tempered sometimes.

One overindulges when you're younger, and you pay the price in later years. But I always realized how important it was for me to take care of myself and my voice if I was gonna have a voice when I was older.

I carry my own tea, food, and Tabasco on the plane with me.

I liked the 12-bar blues because everybody could play it, but they could also play it their own way, and they could express their own emotions using that as a structure.

I like following whatever's right for me at any given time. I could have stayed with Free for 40 years, but it becomes a corporate entity after a while, and once I become locked into it and governed by it and am expected to do a certain thing all of the time, I tend to want to move on.

Without music in schools' curriculum, there is a void for young people to express, explore, and experience music.

You've had all that punk and New Wave thing, and I think people have really got sick up to here with it. I know I have.

When I was 14, I heard Otis Redding in a club local to me, and I was blown away. It leaped out at me and went straight to my heart. I set my sights on singing like that.

Soul and blues were a definite influence on me. It was raw and naked emotion which you didn't get much where I come from.