Loose Women' didn't axe me. I had started planning the tour and album and Loose Women saw my list of 40 dates. I wanted to back out and focus on my music career.
Because of the Thames I have always loved inland waterways - water in general, water sounds - there's music in water. Brooks babbling, fountains splashing. Weirs, waterfalls; tumbling, gushing.
From the first album, Led Zeppelin was always going to be a totally new approach from what had gone before - whether it was approaching the blues or folk music like 'Babe I'm Gonna Leave You': nothing existed like that.
I was around nine when a babysitter snuck 'Who's Next' onto the turntable. The parents were gone. The windows shook. The shelves were rattling. Rock & roll. That began an exploration into music that had soul, rebellion, aggression, affection.
I started off when I was seven years old doing musicals. I was in 'Les Miserables' and 'The Sound of Music,' and my mum's an actress. My parents divorced when I was young, and when she couldn't find a babysitter, I was in the wings, sleeping.
Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.
Often, I could not find the range of emotions in classical music which I found in the The Rolling Stones and Hendrix. Listening to Bach, I found a deep spirituality and felt elevated above the human level. Yet the feeling and emotions attached to popular music speak to us far more personally, and I couldn't leave that behind.
I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music.
That's the beauty of music. You can take a theme from a Bach sacred chorale and improvise. It doesn't make any difference where the theme comes from; the treatment of it can be jazz.
When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.
I grew up on Bach and Beethoven, and now I'm listening to more modern composers who I can't even name. But since I'm constantly doing music, it's difficult to have that quality time to listen to music and do classical stuff.
You have to open the music, so to speak, and see what's behind the notes because the notes are the same whether it is the music of Bach or someone else.
I think J. S. Bach's music stands among humankind's greatest accomplishments. For me, Bach's music is not only as good as music gets but also as good as it gets, period - as good as existence, reality, life, and the world.
There is no kind of music I don't listen to. Everything good is interesting. I am as happy with a Bach fugue as I am with a record by Thelonious Monk.
There is something comforting about going into a practice room, putting your sheet music on a stand and playing Bach over and over again.
Music has always been my back door to life. It is important for people to find something that excites them. I like the concept that if you do what excites you, you will be rewarded generously, whatever form reward takes, which is not necessarily money.
I sometimes think I should go back to school to learn French and music, but who would have me?
'Lollipop Opera' is the backdrop to Finsbury Park. A place that is very thriving, interracial and lot of music stores, Greek, Turkish, all sorts of immigrant music. It's utter Englishness. It blends the Jamaicans, the Irish. It's like what Jim Reeves did with American country music.
For me, the backdrop of half the experiences of life includes music.
I just prefer instrumental. I don't need to hear what other people are singing. And if I need music as a backdrop to work or to think, I need to have that part of the brain clear - I don't need people feeding their fantasies into my vision.
