All you could do was to see them. We were backstage when the Beatles were on and you could just about hear a noise. It was just literally screaming.

I have to tell you, and I don't mean this as sour grapes or anything, but it is hard to play for fans who see you all the time, makes it much harder.

First of all, you have to understand that I'm like anybody else. When I hear my voice on a record I absolutely loathe my voice. I cannot stand my voice.

I'm a rock god? I'm five foot seven. I had me jaw broken, and so my chin stuck way out. That's how I became tough - I learned to pick up anything and fight back... A rock god!

I love Sell Out, I think it's great. I love the jingles. The whole thing as an album is a wonderful piece of work. The cover. Everything about it. It's got humor, great songs, irony.

I live 50 miles from London and we've got some of the highest levels of teenage and childhood poverty in the country. It's disgusting. Just because it's a rural area, it gets forgotten.

I have deliberately kept singing because I have to at my age. If I stopped for even a year my voice would slowly deteriorate until it's not there at all. That's a fact about getting to my age.

I don't think there's any way it could have failed. We don't know failure in this band. We didn't know failure. We got to know it a little after awhile but at that time there was no such word.

We tend to think of age only in time, but I don't think it has much to do with time at all there's a whole load of other things. I've met 16-year-olds who are old and 90-year-olds who are young.

Monterey, I remember, but I seem to remember the Fillmore West, that we played the week before Monterey. That was much more memorable for me. The first time in San Francisco. They were good gigs.

We tend to think of age only in time, but I don't think it has much to do with time at all; there's a whole load of other things. I've met 16-year-olds who are old and 90-year-olds who are young.

No, I was two years older than the other guys. I was a war baby. My family were a lot poorer than they were. I'd had to fight too hard for anything I had in my life and to smash things up for me.

We weren't wealthy but we definitely weren't poor. We were incredibly rich because there was a wonderful community in Shepherd's Bush, where I grew up. All my friends were into villainy and crime.

Well, for the My Generation album, there was nothing to be nervous about in them days. We used to take every day as it came. Every day was just a gig and I think we did the recording between gigs literally.

I never understood that if you sweat as much as I used to every night, you drain your body of salts. So I got very, very, seriously ill. I got to the stage where I was almost hospitalized with serious problems.

I'm realistic about my age and realistic about the fact that there's an awful lot less in front of me than there is behind me. I've always felt that music is an art form that deserves to live the life of the artist.

I think Pete did have a hard time as a kid with his appearance. But don't all kids have a hard time? God, I had a hard time, too. I was little with bow legs and rickets. I used to get picked on like everybody used to get picked on.

I know without our fans and the devotion of our fans we wouldn't be here. I don't mean to put them down, but I'm just stating a fact that it is hard to play to people that see you all the time and it takes a lot of fun out of it in some ways.

A lot of the new people they choose on shows like 'American Idol' and things like that - I don't ever hear lead singers. They always seem to choose to pick people that are great singers, fabulous singers, but they've never got the voice that makes a great lead singer.

I don't think you should ever say, 'This is the last time'. Music isn't like that. You'll be sitting there not wishing to get onto a stage again for maybe two, three, four, five months, or maybe a year, then suddenly you'll wake up and feel like you've got to do it again. It's in the blood, and I never say never.

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