If you're an American kid, you can't help but be influenced by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones because they're always on the radio.

I think it's important for fans to know that but if I'm doing something that inspires me musically then I think it will inspire someone else too.

In the United States, workouts tend to focus on body image and how you look. For me, it's really all about the brain.

To a degree, rock fans like to live vicariously and they like that, music fans in general, but when indie music sort of came into prominence in the early '90s, a lot of it was TV-driven, too, where if you saw the first Nirvana video, you're looking at three guys that look like people you go to school with.

When you break out the acoustic guitar, the words are the focal point unless you're the Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar. So the words have to have meaning.

There was about two years where I was more or less agoraphobic and didn't deal with anybody, didn't talk to anybody, didn't have any friends at all.

An acoustic show is all about you, and any little nuance or mistake is amplified.

Companies figured out that the easiest way to make money was to reissue records that the accounting department had paid for years ago and already made a profit.

There was this moment when we made 'Superunknown': the Seattle music scene had suddenly ended up on an international stage with huge success.

When Soundgarden formed, we were post-punk - pretty quirky.

I really had to come to the conclusion, the sort of humbling conclusion that, guess what, I'm no different than anybody else: I've got to sort of ask for help - not something I ever did, ever. And then part two of that is, like, accept it when it comes, and, you know, believe what people tell me.

I have a hard time narrowing things down to ten or 12 songs. If I walk off stage in anything less than two hours, it just feels strange. It feels early.

Due to irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences, I am permanently leaving the band Audioslave. I wish the other three members nothing but the best in all of their future endeavours.

The first time I ever went to Hawaii, I was listening to island music, thinking, 'I could've been born here, and I'm pretty sure I would never play that.'

The freedom I have as a U.S. citizen is unparalleled. Despite the fact people may not like American passports, having that passport affords me more freedoms than any other passport could.

When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy.

I think back to my childhood, and I remember running around as a kid. We were all running around then. It wasn't about getting into shape. It's just what we did.

I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.

Rock never meant the same thing to everyone, but when I was growing up in the late seventies, everyone could identify the five, ten bands that formed the center.

What formed me as a musician, a songwriter, the sound and personality of my band, a whole lot of that happened well before 1991.

I play Texas Hold'em on my Blackberry. I have amassed a fortune on that. I have almost 30 million dollars from playing. It is unreal.

There's a lot of music that I don't like.

I'm sure I could start a band tomorrow that would have different influences and would want to do something completely different than anything I've done.

I've had a long career and I want to continue to have a long career. The way to do that is not to go away.

I was going to be a musician, no matter what it took. I supported myself with blue-collared jobs so I could write music and be in a band and play shows. I even got into an underground art scene. I was going to do whatever.

I am happy in my own skin.

I can fix dishwashers. I was brought up in a castle with no money and lots of imagination. I learnt a lot about plumbing at an early age.

When I'm home I love to get the wellies on and take the dog for a walk.

I've been travelling all my life.

I always bring divining rods when I'm on tour because you can change energy streams by moving furniture around your hotel room.

I spent a lot of my childhood saying goodbye because I went to boarding school. I didn't resent my parents for sending me there so young as I understood the limitations of the education system in Africa, where we lived at the time.

I studied French and English literature because I liked it.

I thought I would be an overnight star when I had a hit record in Brazil with my first album - but things didn't work out quite like that.

When you're a solo artist and you're not doing well, it can be pretty tough. So when success does come, it feels like you've earned it.

My house is a very calm and beautiful place and is full of positive energy.

You get pigeonholed. It's a kind of safety device for people who don't really want to look any further outside of the box, but I'm actually impregnable as far as what people say about me.

My father fought behind Japanese lines in the second world war and it traumatised him. Everybody who knew him from before said he was the life and soul of the party - fun to be with - but after the war he was different.

There wasn't a lot of physical tenderness with my parents. There was plenty of love but we weren't into the hugging thing, which now I've totally reversed with my family to the point where it probably drives them crazy.

I'd been to South Africa during the Seventies, when it was definitely not kosher to go there. I felt that the best thing to do was to be a missionary and tell people what was going on in their own country because censorship was so dreadful.

I've 300 other songs, but 'Lady In Red' is just one of them. Funnily enough, in America, it is massive, but most people wouldn't have a clue who Chris de Burgh was.

You know you get a tube of toothpaste... such a bloody con. You squeeze and squeeze and nothing more comes out? Well, take a pair of scissors and cut it about an inch and a half from the bottom and it's absolutely packed with stuff! I do that, then cut off the top bit, so I can stick that back on and it doesn't dry out!

I'm not a fool with my money. I've known what it's like to be poor and I don't splash it around stupidly.

I went to Bethlehem in Christmas 2015 to do a television show for German TV and we filmed in the Church of the Nativity, literally above the place where Christ was born.

I remember years ago hearing a top band talking about a song of theirs that was a monster hit and they were really dissing it, saying that they hoped they'd never have to play it again. I thought: 'That's not right. If people love a song, play it.'

I will never forget seeing Alien when it came out in 1979. I'm not that big a fan of horror, but I remember the slow build, the claustrophobic feeling on the spacecraft, this tremendous sense of impending doom.

I don't spend much on myself. It's a bit of a joke within the family.

I believe that music is an international language and deserves to be heard all over the world.

I am a humanist.

We are not politically naive.

It's critically important to have family around me, and some of my happiest moments are when I'm just with my family.