Most people are satisfied with the junk food being sold as music.

When I was 19 I made my first good week's pay as a club musician. It was enough money for me to quit my job at the factory and still pay the rent and buy some food. I freaked.

Music is the fourth great material want first food then clothes then shelter then music.

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs my kidneys my liver my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.

If music be the food of love play on.

I do a one-hour workout called Drenched a cardio-boxing fitness routine Monday through Friday. There are usually between twenty-five and fifty people there - everyone from stay-at-home moms and professional martial artists to teenagers and seniors. They play great dance music. When I can I take two classes back-to-back.

I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways it was everything I ever wanted but when it happened all I felt was total paralysing fear.

I'm completely in love with the world but also terrified of it. It creates some overwhelming feelings. Wanting to battle out that joy and fear is part of my music.

Yet it ought to be obvious that good music generally occupies a higher plane that mere politics. Great writers can express moods through melody and capture experiences we share most powerfully - love lust longing joy rage fear triumph yearning and confusion.

I do support artists standing by their beliefs and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics.

I've noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things whether it's various types of music or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

When I hear music I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times and to the latest.

What Whitney Houston has accomplished will never be accomplished. She's the most famous person on the planet as far as vocaling and her songs. So I'm very happy that I can sit here and say I had a chance to know her. And I'm still dazed that she's gone. But she lives because her music is so powerful.

The world's most famous and popular language is music.

I worked on scores. I went to the musical library in Berlin which is very famous. I discovered that we had scores of Beethoven printed scores of Beethoven that are full of mistakes. Not the wrong or false notes but the wrong dynamic understandable things.

Being famous is having the power to really implement positive change in the world and it gives you the power to do what you want. I'm really grateful for it because I can play music and people will listen.

When I got into the music industry I wasn't focused on being the most famous artist or even getting a major record deal. It was just to make music on my own terms or create my own image do my own hair do my own makeup.

You want a hero in the music world? James Brown. He brought a feeling to music without really using words. He's just famous for his sound.

Sometimes I like to play the soundtracks to famous musicals so we can all sing along. South Pacific is one of my favorites. Our neighbors must hate us.

My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances we've become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.

You've got certain guys that just want to be famous and then you've got the real musicians that just love playing music.

When you look at Michael Jackson there's nobody who loves him in that family nobody. If they did they'd tell him he didn't have to do all that in order to be famous. All he has to do is keep doing his music and be himself. Michael's been a little touched for about 20 years but somebody needs to pull him aside and tell him they love him.

I had no desire to be famous I just wanted to make the greatest music ever made. I didn't want anyone to know who I was.

I would be a huge hypocrite if I didn't tell you that at one time in my life I thought the way that you made music was you got on a major label and you got famous.