Sometimes you just do things and let your natural self become a part of what you're doing.
There'll be no oiling up with this band. The oil has been there for years and it only gets better.
As a horn player, the greatest compliment one can get is when a person comes to you and says, 'I heard this saxophone on the radio the other day and I knew it was you. I don't know the song, but I know it was you on sax.'
I look forward to working out every day.
The word spiritual, not the word religious, is the key.
I like health-conscious cooking, but growing up in the South, I do love southern cooking; southern France, southern Italy, southern Spain. I love southern cooking.
In the mental calmness of a spiritual life, I have found that the answers to the whys in our lives are able to come to you. In my music I find the same thing.
I take my job as a rock and roll sax player very seriously. To do it the way that I must do it, I must be in good condition. The better shape you're in, the harder you can rock.
Now that I am much older, I have had a number of sax players tell me I was responsible for them playing sax. Some of them I have admired over the years.
When I grew up, there was one music: rock n' roll. Somewhere along the line, there was a separation. I don't know why it happened, but it did happen.
The first time I ever saw a black audience at our concert, we were in Zimbabwe.
When I walk on stage, it's the 'healing floor.' No matter how bad I'm hurting, I get out there and do it.
It's like Liverpool. Everybody went for the music. All the young musicians seemed to gravitate to Asbury Park.
I got into the soul music, but I wanted to rock. I was a rocker.
I was a born rock n' roll sax player.
I grew up with a very religious background.
You had your black bands, and you had your white bands, and if you mixed the two, you found less places to play.
Rock-and-roll, to me, is very serious because we deal with the young people. We deal with people who need something, and that's the same thing that a preacher does. He feeds you something that you need spiritually in your soul and in your makeup.
As long as my mouth, hands, and brain still work, I'll be out there doing it. I'm going to keep going 'til I'm not there anymore. This is what's keeping me alive and feeling young and inspired.
To me, the sax is rock n' roll, even though electric guitars kind of pushed it aside for a while.
