There's a lot of trickery that can go on in the studio, and there's a lot that one can do - none of which I am interested in even slightly. I mean, you can actually tune vocals and stuff like that, but it's so hideous, I can't believe it.

I am proud to be a Canuck.

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.

Of course I was a fan when I was a kid. That's what made me get into it, the whole rock n' roll fantasy.

Life is so mundane, isn't it? It's great to hear a guitarist getting into it and the rhythmic section blasting, even if it's all meaningless.

Artists like Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Ann Peebles, Isaac Hayes, and so many more gave me hope when I was an angst-filled teenager trying to make sense of it all... They were my teachers. Through their music, I learned how to live, how to be true to myself, and how to tell my story as a songwriter the way that I was feeling it.

Otis Redding, his voice, there was something spiritual and unworldly and at the same time, very deeply connected with the human connection and the way one feels about life in general, love, life, and everything, really.

There were personality clashes in Free, really. I think it's as simple as that; I think we felt we weren't leaving each other enough room to develop in our own way, and we were restricting each other. So we said, let's go different ways.

I don't like lyrics to be overbearing. I like them to say something. But I'm not trying to change the world overnight. Something simple and understandable that people can relate their own everyday experiences to.

A song like 'Shooting Star' - the thought process behind writing that song was that I looked around and thought, 'Wow, there's a lot of people dying at that time in the music business.'

I got the idea for the song 'Bad Company' when I saw a poster for the Jeff Bridges movie, and it reminded of an old Victorian picture that I'd once seen, and it said, 'Beware of bad company.' So I sat down at the piano and started to write the song.

When I first started writing songs, I looked around at the bands that were making it, and they all had the original material. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Stones - everybody was writing their own songs. That's the way that you established your own identity.

Once I'd become a songwriter, it just stays with you. You always want to write more songs because it's such a great feeling.

I honestly have really deep reservations about releasing everything you ever did. Every time somebody farted in the studio, now it's out there.

Free - I miss that band, but when I look back, we were very young.

A lot of those early blues records and soul records were pretty much live. It was what it was, and they had goofs and mistakes, but it still kept its charm. We have to remember to keep the feel. It's so important.

I was 17, and it was my first summer in London as a professional singer. One hot, humid evening, I heard that the Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing in a blues club above a pub in Finsbury Park. I was flat broke and couldn't afford a ticket, so I went along just to stand outside and listen.

When I went down to London in '67, I had three things in mind: To survive, to find peace of mind, and to make music doing it.

When Free came together, there was a creative magic around us, something unique and different.

Free got famous fast, and it was a shock. You're working towards it, and when you suddenly get it with bells on, it is a bit much. I don't know how well I dealt with it.

I still love 'All Right Now,' strangely enough. But then that's probably because I didn't play it for some twenty years.

I didn't 'join' Queen. We played together and found a strong connection, did a TV show, and carried on - then I suddenly realised I'd been with these guys for four years. If I'd been called up and asked to join, I would have said no.

'When I'm Sixty-Four' hasn't worn well, but George Harrison's 'Within You Without You' is awesome.

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.

My mother said I used to dance to all this radio music when I was a young kid.

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.

With Free, we were teenagers, and, ummm, there was a lot of raging hormones.

The thing about simplicity is it's not easy to achieve. To many, simplicity can mean repetitiveness and maybe even a lack of intelligence, those kind of things, but simple yet unique is the key.

I come from a working-class family of seven children.

My dad worked on the Middlesbrough docks.

I was conscious of vocalists from an early age.

There are so many challenges and different parts to the job of singing. When you're in the studio, you have to be really, really, precise. You've got to keep everything clean and nice because that's going to be something that's down forever. And then you go onstage, and it's much more in the moment.

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.

Blues is such a dynamic and ever-changing system of music.

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.

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

I look back on the early days of Free with Paul Kossoff with the most fondness of any of my bands, because I met him at a time when I was in London and very hungry, and we believed in each other.

I like to be in control of my own destiny.

In Free, we managed ourselves, and it was too tough for us to handle all of what that entailed when we got to touring America.

Live music is where you get the inspiration and the creativity.

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.

I had a band when I was 14, and we would play around in my hometown of Middlesbrough, and we'd go to the club afterwards, which was the Purple Onion then. There would be live bands playing, and in between that, the DJ would be playing records.

I saw The Jeff Beck Group at the Marquee Club in 1967, when he was with Rod Stewart, and holy smokes, they were amazing.

I got the idea of what a band should be from listening to Booker T and Otis Redding.

As a performer, the thing that I love is to see people come together.

I loved the 'Free Spirit' tour and the guys who helped create the magic: Pete Bullick, Rich Newman, Ian Rowley and Gerard 'G' Louis.

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

When we formed Bad Company, I looked around and asked, 'Who is the biggest rock band in the world?' The answer was undoubtedly Led Zeppelin. Peter Grant was their manager, so we got him to work with us. That made the difference for Bad Company.

I got the idea of meditation from The Beatles. It was a fad, but I've found it beneficial in my crazy life.

I have a lot of analog. I think a lot of people do. There are a lot of people that are re-discovering it. I still have a lot of my old records from back in the day. It's a joy to play things like Junior Wells' 'Hoodoo Man Blues,' and John Mayall & The Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. There's a warmth that you can still feel.