Steve Winwood

You would probably think that rock music is an urban phenomena, but the main reason for doing it in '68 was so that we could play music very loud any time of the day or night without getting complaints from the neighbours.

Don't buy this 'believe in yourself' rubbish. Why do they keep telling youngsters that? There's no point believing in yourself if you don't know what you're doing. Once you've got a vision of what you want to do, by all means stick to that passionately and doggedly. Believe in your ideas. It's not quite the same thing.

I got thrown out of music school for even listening to Fats Domino and Ray Charles. I was asked, 'What kind of music do you like to listen to?' and I said, 'Well, I do like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky but I also like Fats Domino and Ray Charles,' and they literally said, 'Either forget about that or leave.'

I am so tired of ruggedly handsome heroes. I don't know too many ruggedly handsome people who are necessarily nice people. In fact, the beautiful people have a big handicap because they rely too much on their appearance and don't bother to become interesting.