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I just think that playing bass, like punk rock bass with a pick, wasn't meant to be done for 25 years.

The average life spans of many bands are not that long, up to five years if they are lucky.

Then, as the day progresses, depending on how the product is coming in - for instance, the fish man will fax us and say black bass is great - throughout the day, we'll also make judgment calls and adapt to what's available.

Bass players are always the intellectual kind, but nobody knows it.

I got my first real bass guitar in my hands when I was 14 - a 1957 Fender Precision, which is still hanging on the wall in my front room. I loved the heaviness of it and the feel of the wood. I still do.

So I am one of those bass players who can do something and musically, it was back then and now it is even more, if you noticed on the new album, I am not playing all the time anymore.

In 1972, I got my first electric bass and started playing the kind of instrument I play now. I found that the majority of musicians couldn't bear that. They are not used to listening to the bass because they think the bass is in the background to support them.

I actually think that bass is probably the instrument that has evolved in a quantum leap compared to other instruments. It's the instrument that's evolved the most, especially with how it's perceived. And even how it's played, and how it's viewed from a point of view of commerce, like with the music industry.

Age isn't a barrier to playing the bass, and I've definitely improved over the years, although maybe I'm not as flash as I once was. But looking back, I can't imagine a life without a guitar.

It takes 300 years, it seems, for the great bands to get their due.