L.A. was just an inspiring kind of place to be. It felt like going to Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. Everybody's there. Everybody's hanging around. Everybody's talking about music.

I've been into guns ever since I was a little kid, and the ones that fascinate me most are the black powder guns that people used back in the 17 and 1800s.

Back In The Saddle' - I never realised what a good riff that was, or at least how much it satisfied me. And when we play it live, it comes across much better than I ever expected it to.

Sometimes when a record's done, I'm satisfied and I won't listen back to it for a while 'cause I'm usually pretty tired of the songs. Then I've got to learn them again to play them live, and sometimes it takes a while to realise it's a really good record.

My first job was at Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, my second job was at a pharmaceutical company in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. My third job was at Palmolive. And I realized, three jobs in three years, maybe it wasn't the job. It had to be me.

A lot of my career is mental, and I just have so much perspective from being raised in a city like Detroit and being able to come and live the life that I do now. To see that broad of a spectrum is really helpful for relating to people and feeling them.

I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Universal Music Group have given me the opportunity to manage the companies I have contributed to my whole career. I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artist community.

I'd always been fascinated by archaeology; it was my original career plan as a kid.