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.

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.

That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.

Every musical movement that is big enough has to produce some good musicians who wouldn't have had the incentive to start playing without it.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.

We were brash young fellows'. I was always hanging with the older crowd anyway. The musicians were the Hip Cats, and I was hanging with them anyway. I Just started out real early.

You can have all sorts of relationships, but there's something with musicians working together where you can have relationship that can just continue to grow in a beautiful way.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

It's my fault in many cases because I don't initiate the contact to talk with a lot of other musicians.

Musician jokes are a kind of joke that usually have to do with how much money someone makes. Musicians are always starving, so they're really mean to each other about who makes what.

What 'jazz' means to me is the worst kind of working conditions, the worst in cultural prejudice. The term 'jazz' has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians.

We wanted to guide the musicians, so we could create our own sound. We would never let the band just go in and play the chord sheets. We were very focused on what we had in mind for these productions.

I don't take compliments very easily. I think most musicians suffer from low self-esteem to some extent.

I'm always going to get more of a charge playing Chicago than I will Duluth or some place like that. Just because of the history and the people there are way more knowledgeable than a lot of other cities. It's an amazing music scene with some great bands and great musicians.

Watch MTV and you can see what the music scene is like in England. The Spice Girls? Not a lot of creativity in the commercial area. There are still great musicians in England, but not a lot being heard that much.

Success breeds volume, and it's just amazing how many young writers, artists, and musicians there are in town.

At the art college in Edinburgh someone arranged for some London groups to come up and play. I was in a supporting band, with Bernie Green I think. Derek Bailey was one of the visiting musicians. He seemed to like my playing and asked me to come down to London.

Out of doing all that experimentation with sound I decided I wanted to do it with live musicians. To take repetition, take music fragments and make it live. Musicians would be able to play it and create this kind of abstract fabric of sound.

But, I would be naive not to recognize the number of musicians who tell me they have been influenced by me and sight me - as well as Alex and Neil - as a musician who has been a positive influence on their playing.

We're not spokespeople, we're musicians.

I was afraid the other musicians might want to present themselves too much, though I see in the coverage I've received of the album that the musicians got wonderful reviews for their contributions and abilities. I think the four musicians played freely within my limits.

I only choose musicians who I think will emerge, can emerge, with their own character, while still going along with the tune in question.