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I've made this decision not to talk to the press about anything that's gone on in my life, but just to write music about it. They can interpret it themselves.

I don't know what's more embarrassing, these musicians and actors talking about politics in interviews or the media actually giving them credibility about it. It's absurd that a celebrity could speak out on the economy or politics with no more justification than a hit album or a movie.

I'm not sure I am a politician. I would say that I am still an artist, and I'm trying to use politics as an instrument for change.

That's the problem with news interviews, you work your tail off to get prominent figures in the news on the radio, but once they've been on, the event passes, the urgency, the issues you talked about evaporate.

We're not a political band. We don't want to tell people what to do or what to think. We just want to tell them to think.

I had a deal with CNN and had no intention of going back to the music business, but you know, it's Lynyrd Skynyrd.

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.

I don't get involved in record label politics.

And you realise you're doing a public service in making people happy - as a musician you can give people something a doctor, a lawyer, a politician cannot give them that. It's not scientific. It's spiritual - a good feeling. And although you don't know them personally, the audience are like your friends.