In the beginning, I was so inspired by the music. I had the option to make something modern with classic undertones, but I wanted to make something that was exactly like that old sound.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
So many of the sounds that contemporary composers were trying to create were to be found in the traditional musics of the world. That was encouraging but also little daunting to think that you had to work so hard to be new and yet it was old.
It's been a transformative period and I really wanted to make music from what I've experienced.
The late sixties and early seventies were kind of a breeding ground for exciting new sounds because easy listening and folk were kind of taking over the airwaves. I think it was a natural next step to take that blissful, easy-going sound and strangle the life out of it.
There's definitely an old school element to my music, but I also think it's modern.
Once I started working with generative music in the 1970s, I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music - not like a record that you'd put on, which would play for a while and finish.
I don't think the music that I do is nostalgic in any way; I don't think about going back to nice, old-fashioned music. I'm certainly influenced by old music, but I want to bring it slap-bang up to today.
I found a sound that people really liked - I found this basic concept and all I did was change the lyrics and the melody a little bit. My songs, if you listen to them, they're quite a lot alike, like Chuck Berry.
In the late '70s I started to search for the perfect sound - whatever that might be, before that I was mainly interested in drugs, insanity and the rock'n'roll lifestyle.
It was only later on that I became more interested in older music.
When I first came out, like a lot of the artists at that time, I had a very polished, very overproduced sound.