Jack Bruce

Growing up in inner-city Glasgow, it sometimes seemed to me money hadn't been invented.

I've always had money because of my early success with Cream, so I tell young musicians to aim to write their own material, because owning the composition rights makes a very big difference.

I think I'm an okay parent, but I'd put myself in the category of a musician-who-happened-to-become-a-father. I'm definitely not a father-who-happened-to-be-a-musician.

Thankfully I'm not endlessly ambitious, but I have done some crazy ambitious things like buying an island off the west coast of Scotland in the late Sixties.

Well I like everything but my first love has always been piano because when I started out there was a piano in my house and it was there so I just started tinkling on it really so it's always been my first love.

We all have roles in life. I'm a dad, a husband, this and that, but basically I only feel justified in being alive when I'm on the stage.

I had a lot of vocal problems when I was younger. I don't know if it's down to leading a healthier lifestyle or what but my range has increased.

I know he played on the last record but I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking of Eric Clapton.

I was 16 when I got a scholarship to study classical composition at a conservatory. By that time I had already listened to Scottish folksong with my mother, sung in church choirs, and had sung solo with Benjamin Britten conducting.

Between now and then and I just felt it was ready and it was a long enough period gone by. I obviously didn't want to hurt anybody, you know. It was done out of a genuine memorial or tribute whatever you want to call it.

At the age of 16 I started performing with a dance band in the evenings and began earning more money than my father, but he was pleased for me.

Well all the big companies are really panicked by the internet thing and all that, and sales went down, although sales have gone up again in this country a bit and also the big companies, because they're so big, they need big sales really so they're not really interested.