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My influences were Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry.

I was inspired by the classic rock radio of the Seventies. They separated Chuck Berry and the Beatles from the Led Zeppelins and Bostons and Peter Framptons of the time. In many ways, classic rock became bigger than mainstream rock.

I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most moved by. Roy Orbison came a little bit later.

I was very keen on people like Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent.

I loved Carl Perkins, Jerry lee Lewis... not only were they personal friends.

I'm too young to have experienced firsthand the '70s rock, but when I was in high school, me and my friends were super into Neil Young. That was the grunge era, and he was considered cool again.

When I was 20, in 1957, and maybe you would say I was old enough to know better, but nevertheless, I was completely nuts about Buddy Holly. And I loved pop bands that had absolutely no intellectual pretensions whatsoever. I loved the Monkees.

One summer I remember, I got exposed to Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and Buddy Holly was a very very big, made a very big impression on me. Because of a lot of things, you know, the way he looked and his charisma.

In high school, I was always into Jerry Lee Lewis, and they decided they needed a piano player for the jazz band. I had my little boogie-woogie thing that I did, so I did my little boogie-woogie thing. I had a very high-pitched voice.

I mean, I haven't been completely lacking in some enjoyment of Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly. But I just didn't pay attention to that period of music, obviously.