I can't stand a house to be dirty or even messy, even. I am a bit OCD. Wash the dishes when you finish eating.

I know I've made a lot of mistakes, but I've done some good things along the way.

I've had a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but I don't look back on anything with regret.

I was lucky I was blessed with the constitution of a horse.

My dad was a quiet assassin. He was really charming and smiley and softly spoken, but he could knock you out in a second.

I always thought I could be brave and charge at things and smash 'em and walk away, but it takes courage to sit and look at things and say, 'This is what I am. How do I fix it? How do I live with it?'

I grew up in poverty. I was ashamed of the fact, when we were kids, we'd be at school hungry, our stomachs rumbling so we couldn't concentrate.

One of my major regrets was that period in my life where I wasn't present in my kids' life. I was in another world.

There's something about the energy and the expectations that an audience projects at you. I get up on stage and work and work, and there's chaos all around me, then I'll shut my eyes, and boom! I slot into the zone. It's like the eye of the hurricane. Everything is easy, and I'm capable of doing things I didn't know I was.

We still had all our problems growing up as a struggling immigrant family, but Australia was like a breath of fresh air, literally. Playing on grass, having good schools - trees. I didn't even know trees where I'd come from. So from the day I got here, I've loved Australia.

The music industry is quite brutal and quite harsh and can be spirit shattering, but it's an honour to be a musician because your job is to make sure people enjoy themselves; to make people forget about their troubles.

I used to think I was tough, but there's a difference between bravado and courage, and I only started to show courage when I began to get help. So now I make a point of telling people, 'Hey, it's a good thing to ask for help, not a bad thing.'

I keep my Scottish connection. I know where I was born, and that's an important part of my history, and I think all immigrants are the same. But if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.

Politicians have been spreading fear, saying if we're letting in refugees, we're letting in terrorists. It's not the truth. We've got to recognise the difference between terrorism and people who are refugees; people who are struggling.

When I hear a singer, I want them to be passionate and intense, and soul singers like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett always seemed to do exactly that.

Cold Chisel had their moments, but basically, they were all decent, quiet chaps. I was just a lunatic. Those guys didn't know what had hit them when I joined the band.

No matter how much poverty you grow up with, you shouldn't be subjected to violence and abuse.

I came from a tough childhood. There was a lot of stuff that I'd actually forgotten or that I'd blocked or hidden away until I started addressing it.

I learned that the public and the press don't need to know everything about you, or they might turn on you.

As a teenager, I didn't really think about anything. I was just stumbling around trying to find something.

I think I got stamina from my dad, although he didn't have a lot of drive.

I used to think anyone with abandonment issues was a waste of space. But you do need to get help. Blokes don't talk about those things. It's a taboo in the bloke world.

My childhood in Adelaide was filled with sport. I played soccer from morning until night.

If there was one thing I tried to instil in my children as they were growing up, it was that you get nothing for nothing. You have to work hard to get any rewards. That applies in music or whatever you choose to do. The same goes in relationships; you will only get back what you put in.

I don't want to become a laid-back artist by any stretch of the imagination.

I hate fear politics.

There are new children arriving and trying to reach our lucky country every day, and I hope that we can all work together to help them find their dream, too.

I never take for granted how great Australia is and how well I have been treated here, so thank you for this chance at making a good life.

For a long time, it was all about chart position. 'If my record doesn't come in at No. 1, I'm a failure.' I cared too much about what people thought of me, and that was symptomatic of the trauma from my childhood.

In 1972, I climbed out of my bedroom window and ran away from home with my older sister and her friends to go to the infamous Sunbury rock festival.

If anything, I label myself as sort of Buddhist. My wife Jane is Buddhist.

When I first started, all the reviews of Cold Chisel would say, 'This singer won't have a voice in six months.'

I was probably born an alcoholic.

I'm hyperactive.

I'm one of those people who can't sit still. I like to be doing something. I cook; I've been painting.

I think it's criminal the way poverty is allowed to flourish.

I know that life is full of lessons to be learned, and my children will have to learn their own, but I hope I have broken the cycle of shame and fear that plagued my childhood.

It's one of the beautiful things about Australia that people do get to share this life here, away from trouble.

We're a whole country full of migrants - we need each other, and we should help each other.

Around 2001, I went to rehab in Arizona, and I started to see what was going on and how the past affected me. I started to get a grip on it. But over the next decade, I reverted to the behaviour I used to protect myself when I was young - being mindless, being defeatist and full of bravado.

My mum and dad came from lower-working-class Glasgow, which was tough. Literally, if you see a cat there with a tail, it's a tourist.

Where I grew up, there were times when we didn't have anything to eat.

Everything that happened to me as a child was the perfect breeding ground for a rock n' roll singer. It toughened me up. I was on edge; I was needy. I needed people to like me 'cause it made me feel safe... and that gave me confidence.

You see politicians talking about negative gearing or tax on your second home - most people I knew growing up couldn't afford the rent, let alone buying a house, or a second house.

It's a real bloke thing, not talking to people because it's not manly to get help.

Where I lived in Glasgow looked like Dresden after the war. It was a bomb site. I don't think I'd ever played football on grass until I moved to Australia.

When I came to Australia, it was like heaven.

The Internet has been a godsend and a nightmare for the music industry.

People change naturally when they have children.

Life is good.