As a kid, I loved classical music. Composers like Beethoven were like rock stars to me. Then there were the real rock stars: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan.
I thought my Beatles LPs sounded pretty good on a record player, but that was before I had heard a CD.
I grew up with The Beatles, Bob Marley and Talking Heads. I like the melody-with-rhythm aspect of music - there's so much to discover still.
Guided By Voices was huge when I was 16. Then I got into the Beatles, then classical music, Beethoven.
I actually didn't listen to the Beatles song 'Nowhere Man' when I was writing my book of the same name. What I listened to a lot was 'Abbey Road.' Its disjointedness and its readiness to confuse only to delight were inspiring to me.
As a kid, my parents would always listen to a lot of Beatles, Queen, Elvis. My mom was born and raised in Italy, and my dad was born in Canada and moved back and forth between Canada and Italy, so they would also listen to all the big Italian stars like Eros Ramazzotti, Gigi D'Alessio, Tiziano Ferro, Laura Pausini.
Maybe 'Can't Stop Feeling' and 'Turn It On' we'll just release as singles. It's a thing The Beatles used to do which I really loved, the idea of releasing something as a single completely on its own.
The Stones were more dangerous than other bands of the Sixties. It looked like they had more fun than the Beatles - like they stayed up later.
The Beatles will never get back together and David Lee Roth will never again sing with Van Halen.
Even the Beatles lived their lives as a soap opera.
