I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I loved music from earliest childhood - from as long as I can remember.
I felt frustrated by the limitations of rock and the lifestyle of touring around on a bus and playing the same songs over and over. So I went back to school to study music, and one of the things I got into was the Italian opera composer Puccini.
When I got into the Beatles, I must have only been about six or seven but old enough to take notice. We used to have an old radiogram which, for readers of a certain age, was like a big cabinet thing with a record player inside it.
Well when I was young, when I was very young, when I was a little boy I don't remember the music I heard, but there was an article in the Brooklyn Daily written by my Aunt about how I could choose phonograph records.
Man, I listened Nas and B.I.G growing up. I listened to both of them when I was younger for sure.
Before I was 5, I did have a lot of time on my hands. I had no job and really no career, and I spent an awful lot of time listening to records. It was more the classical ones, really - Prokofiev, and I think there was some Mozart in there, and more impressionistic composers like Delius.
My dad liked a lot of Motown, but I didn't listen to it until my teenage years.
As a kid, I always was obsessed with Houdini.
I drew the last image ever of Opus at midnight while Puccini was playing and I got rather stupid. Thirty years. A bit like saying goodbye to a child - which is ironic because I was never, never sentimental about him as many of his fans were.
As a young man, I wooed, unsuccessfully, with Puccini. It's important to get your operas right.