My place in Scotland is in the middle of nowhere, so you've just got a keyboard, guitar, a little drum machine and you know if you can work stuff out like that, if you can hammer out songs that sound good just with those three things and a voice, you're on your way.

Toby not being there doesn't bother me, I mean I can work with anybody as long as we get along and as long as they've got an understanding of what I want and what I'm aiming for. To start with, when he left, it was difficult.

My place in Scotland is in the middle of nowhere, so you've just got a keyboard, guitar, a little drum machine and you know if you can work stuff out like that, if you can hammer out songs that sound good just with those three things and a voice, you're on your way.

I mean, I could just go round and use session musicians for every song, but I don't find that helps when it comes to setting up a band for live. Derrick has been with me for donkey's years.

We spent a month in LA using a pool of musicians, a string arranger called Benjamin Wright, some great backing singers, and it gave tracks like Dynamite, which was written there, that kind of flavour.

All I want to know is that I can keep this house for the rest of my days and I want to make good music... and have the odd sports car in the garage, obviously!

Every now and again I need to get away from everything. I'm quite a hidey-hole kind of a guy.

How is the economy supposed to recover when people can't afford to fill the tank?

I am quite fussy about clothes.

I can do the equivalent of 150 miles per hour and not get stopped. I could quite happily pursue people down the motorway in my helicopter.

I consider myself very lucky indeed to have had the career I have. I listen to the radio now and you can't tell artists apart.

I didn't get my first car until I was 22. It was a BMW 1602 and now I've got it back I'm waiting to restore it.

I like girls who like the countryside, put on walking boots and can bend with the wind a bit. If you're going to live with me, you need to be able to embrace the countryside and wet dogs.

I love being able to go on local flights when the weather is right. I've popped to the Isle of Wight, Cornwall and been mountain flying in Wales. When I got my licence I was over the moon, it was one of the greatest days of my life - it took two years to get!

I may be the prat in the hat, that's cool, but I drive an Aston Martin DB5.

I think a lot of ladies get quite scared about people like me, 'rock stars', and it can be hard to meet the right sort of person.

I think these days a lot of the younger generation feels that the world owes them something. But you've got to get off your backside and you've got to do all the crap stuff, too.

I'm 41 now and the right knee has got a bit of a twinge in it. I get about the stage a little less now.

I'm in this absolutely gorgeous manor house with acres of quite beautiful countryside. I've got trout in the river, an organic vegetable garden, I've got my work 40 yards from my home. I don't mind being criticised, but where are they criticising from? Which hut are they criticising me from, exactly?

I'm not gonna give the British Government the joy of keeping taxing me. They don't tax art. And all my cars are just a collection of art.

I'm very used to stages and dressing rooms. And dare I say it, much as I like being at home, I love the buzz of a new hotel room. It never quite loses its thing.

The mid-life crisis is just those times when you're not so into the things you were when you were younger.

Then you have to be with somebody who understands your job. Understands there are gonna be dollybirds going, 'Hi I'm Candy,' and be prepared to ignore that. And also be prepared to be there when you get home. That's a difficult job.

There's nothing classic about what's around now. I am a bit old-school. There are some things that are never out of fashion because they just look good. But if you want classic style these days you have to get it made.

Well, I'm British. I'm proud to be British and I love this country. I'm going nowhere.

When I listen to Radio 1 and hear five different tracks in a row using old disco samples, well that's plagiarism, that's taking other people's music.

Your private life is your private life and you keep it to yourself. You get more respect that way.

I had given up the guitar between '75 and '78. I completely lost interest. I was sick of hearing other guitar players and I was tired of my tunes.

Every time the guys were knocked out by my guitar playing and the girls were knocked out by the type of songs I did. That set us apart from the average blues band.

I play piano and guitar. Acoustic guitar. I tried studying classical guitar when I was 16 but it got really hard. I could never play a lead to save my life.

Oh yeah, I mean, it wasn't a very good guitar, most good guitars have got thrust rods in the necks that you can adjust or that'll keep them in shape, you know keep them straight. This one just, well it turned into a bow and arrow after a couple of months.

In OK Computer, the guitar was already moving towards a tone generator as well as a riff generator.

Cool things happen. Ace's guitar flies through space, goes through a hole, and blows up. I throw drumsticks and they come flying at you.

Yes, I took up the guitar when I was about 14 or 15, in high school.

I keep a guitar around while writing and will improvise music. I do this for several reasons, such as that it's fun, and sometimes it helps me with the meter.

I like to play guitar, jam out, play the blues, go watch movies. I love movies.

Arranging is the way I put my stamp on my music as much as my guitar playing.

Look what venison does to a goofy guitar player from Detroit? I'm going to be 54 this year and if I had any more energy I'd scare you.

An uncle of mine emigrated to Canada and couldn't take his guitar with him. When I found it in the attic, I'd found a friend for life.

Because I don't play guitar any more, African harmonies and rhythms have been an inspiration to me. I love the raw origin of the sound. It complements my voice and words naturally.

I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.

So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I'd try it too.

I don't understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.

I didn't want to get attached to one guitar; I didn't want to have an instrument that was irreplaceable.

I don't really know why I chose bass except that it was different than guitar.

Except for a few guitar chords, everything I've learned in my life that is of any value I've learned from women.

I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.

I just like simplicity. I like simple songs, I like simple chords, simple vocals, simple lead guitar. I just like simplicity. That's just the way I like it.

I took the rhythm place, which a lot of people didn't know how to do the way I could, and this was really the first time that Johnny had a rhythm guitar player.