I don’t enjoy British shows as a rule because British audiences are strange.

I’ve worked with a lot of people who are more famous than myself who are terribly insecure.

It was great being together as a band, but much more difficult being brothers than it was being in a band.

Whenever I have a bad day I just think of these people.

Simplicity is the key.

Lots of people think it was Jimmy Page who had the first fuzzbox. It wasn’t, No! it wasn’t me either.

Well, I’d had the Fat Mattress earlier as a writing outlet for songs and that.

People say, oh it’s a shame, you’re not nostalgic about the ’60s. Well actually, it’s quite good, when you think of it. Wouldn’t it be sad if I was sitting here wishing it back?

I’m really happy that I got to work with such fresh talent. In a day when record companies are not particularly good at encouraging young, talented songwriters to come forward and get exposure, I think...

Music is there to enrich your life and make you aware of things in a slightly different way.

It’s very questionable, and we will pursue every factor, every element, every second of the timeline, of the final hours of Maurice’s life. We will pursue that relentlessly. That will be our quest from now...

There’s not only emotion in the way you sing but also in what you sing. That way I can compensate it.

I don’t put myself on Jeff Beck’s level, but I can relate to him when he says he’d rather be working on his car collection than playing the guitar.

I’ve always played every amp I’ve ever had full up, because rock and roll is supposed to be played loud. Also, that’s how you get your sustain.

But people are now realising why I was playing bass with Hendrix.

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.

When I’m singing I try not be a singer with a capital S. I just try to get it out so I feel comfortable with it.

Well, I think it’s kind of good to step out of the Sabbath banner, you know, and not go under the name of Black Sabbath or whatever.

I think one of the things about writing in the studio is that the song hasn’t matured, if you like, so quite often the vocals are early attempts. Whereas once you’ve taken it out on...

We try and stay out of the corporate side of it. The band has never compromised. At some point in our career we could have made a certain type of record and sold millions of...

Everybody is a teenage idol.

Playing lifts you out of yourself into a delirious place.

I’m very moved by Renaissance music, but I still love to play hard rock – though only if it’s sophisticated and has some thought behind it.

I never had a Christmass at home for about 10 years.

It was rehearsing in the studio, at which point they were setting up the sound, and once we’d got the thing together they’d actually record it, without us knowing sometimes!

I’m not, by nature, a collaborator. My biggest influences were people like painters and poets. These are solitary workers.

It just felt like the right time to focus on solo material.

It is worrying, but we feel as though our first album is a representation of our musical career of the first years up to this point.

I don’t like doing gigs. We’re pretty good at it, but it takes too much time and energy. Time and energy I’d rather spend on other things.

I will always have my songs and I don’t think I will ever dry-up.

Let’s get one thing straight: there’s no such thing as the Bristol sound.

What is the world coming to?

Stevie Ray Vaughan was very intense. Maybe that’s what caught everybody’s attention. As a player, he didn’t do anything amazing.

Most of the groups couldn’t handle the studio, it was a very nerve racking experience if you never worked in studio conditions before.

Well, the first day we went through three songs, very basically.

The most effective instruments do have a vocal quality.

We’ve been in each other’s pockets our entire lives.

Nothing has changed in our relationship with East West. We have no relationship with East West. We’ve been withholding our labour for almost seven years now.

We had to leave Australia to become international stars.

We’re thinking about printing the lyrics with the next record so that people can find their own meaning in them. But then they would start having a life of their own, and I think the...

I don’t see myself as such an important guitarist.

I hope to soon be in contact with the man who is searching for Noah’s ark.

Everybody was starting to grow long hair and wear pink suits and purple glasses and stuff and then, I suppose, some people thought we were crazy, but we weren’t really crazy because we’re all still...

I have never felt in tune with the whole rock industry.

When there is a voice in a piece of music, we tend to focus on the voice. That is probably something from when we were babies and we depended on hearing our mother’s voice.

I was mostly surprised by the rap artists, actually, that were influenced by Sabbath. That was a surprise. But it’s very nice and I’m very honored. It’s nice to know after 27 years now that...

I think it is the weak and the young and the minorities that you need to look after to get a healthy creative environment – to get a lot of choices, a lot of different...

You can be tops in Australia and be unheard of everywhere else.

I don’t ever wish I was somebody else.

The intense perfumes of the wild herbs as we trod them underfoot made us feel almost drunk.