I think I come from a time when all the artists I grew up with and I loved always used to try and push the boundaries, and there doesn't seem so much of that, really.
All my children inspire me in life, and that always comes out in the writing.
I'm not big on rap, to be honest. I just don't get it. It's angry people shouting. I like a song, melodies, people singing.
For me, the best thing I can do is play live. The best way for me to put over what I'm trying to do is to play live. Whether it's an acoustic show, electric or whatever... if I shine at all, that's where it all really happens - it just took me a while to rediscover that.
I hear an album so many times during the course of making it that when I've just finished it, I don't want to hear it again. After you've taken a little bit of time away from it, you can come back to it, which can be scary. I'm happy with 'Sonik Kicks,' man.
Of course I'm proud of what I've done, but I'm interested in what's next. I want to be relevant now, in 2012. I've done my bit for the past. I've only ever been about what's next, really, and I'll be that way until I keel over.
I kept the first Rickenbacker I ever got, a little short-scale John Lennon-type model. And I've got a couple of 12-string models, which are really nice, and I've got a Pete Townshend model, which Pete gave me a few years ago. But that's about it.
I don't think about what I can't do or what I shouldn't be doing. I just think there are endless possibilities musically, really.
I'm so lucky, I'm just really grateful for what I've got around me - children and my wife and everything else.
I want to hear as much music as I possibly can before I leave this mortal coil but it's impossible to hear it all because there's so much of it.
I'm always looking for something. Not in an unhappy way. I just like to try different things. I don't want to be morbid, but I'm not getting any younger.
I've always had self-belief, though my sensitive side has never been fully appreciated. For every 'Down in the Tube Station at Midnight,' I've written an 'English Rose.' People forget.
There are so many artists who get to my age that get comfortable and just stick in a groove, and I really don't want to do that.
I was always taught as a kid that if there's anything you want in life, you've got to work towards it. I guess that sort of stayed with me, really. But also, for me, from the time I was, like, 10 years old, all I ever wanted to do was be in a band and make music.
It's quite liberating to get to a certain age, 'cos you're not chasing number one hits or trying to be an international superstar. I've done all that. I'm not out to prove much more to anyone but myself really, to be an artist and see if there is a new undiscovered music out there for me to make.
I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music.
I take my hat off to people like the Stones, but it's not for me. I couldn't do that. Jagger is brilliant and long may he rock. I couldn't make my career out of old songs; it would do my head in.
I get labelled as just being about one thing, but there's lots of layers to what I do. It's just lazy journalism, but people start to accept it. If people spent an hour in my car driving around London and listening to the stuff I listen to, they'd hear some interesting stuff.
It is nice to make a record and people like it, and it's encouraging.
I think politicians are so far out of step with what people really want.
