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I've never recorded anything I didn't like.

If I didn't love it, I would not record it.

You might have a favorite band and really dislike one of the records. That's fine.

People who care about records are always giving me a hard time. I mean, I would destroy records in performances, and break them, and whatever I could do to them to create a sound that was something else than just the sound that was in the groove.

I never want to record something that I'm not proud of just because I think it might be a big hit. There's no positive about that because if you record a song you hate and it's a big hit, then you're singing a song every night that you hate. And if you record a song that you hate and it isn't a hit, then you sold out for no reason.

In the mid-1980s to the early 1990s I was writing songs not because I particularly liked what I was doing, but because I was desperately trying to get back into the charts. I really didn't enjoy it. I didn't like the music I was making, I wasn't proud of it, like I have been before or since.

A lot of times, that's hard to capture: what you sound like in person versus what you sound like on record. If I had total control, I would do a lot of the old songs - not only my songs but Sam Cooke songs, Luther Vandross, melody songs. That's what I would really do if I had an opportunity to do a record.

I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

I'd forgotten what it was like to play music and have it be fun so I decided to stop. I wasn't even sure if I was going to make a new record, I was just kinda quitting.