Internet is a good and convenient device for us for easy communication. It has lots of value.

The only advice I can give is to absorb as much as you can from as wide a spectrum as you can. If you're in a rock band and only soak up Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple kind of beginnings, then you're not going to have much leeway.

My grandad was an opera singer, my uncle a jazz musician; I was a boy soprano in the church choir. But the first performance with Deep Purple was something I'll never forget. All elements were working brilliantly.

I can't do one thing at a time. If I'm writing song lyrics, I've got to be doing the ironing or cooking or something while I'm working. If I just sit there and stare at the walls, I get nothing.

In Poland, the whole saying is, 'You've got one eye to Morocco and the other to the Caucasus.' That's the heart of the culture. In England, they say it less romantic: 'You've got a wandering eye.' The saying means my main stream in life must be Deep Purple. That's my main job. Then every now, and I can wander off and have one eye to Morocco.

We've been touring ever since we were able to afford to buy a van, and I don't think we'll ever stop until something falls off or is irreparable.

I was in a band called Episode Six with Roger Glover, which was more of a harmony band, really. At one gig, there were a few dodgy characters leaning up against the wall of the venue - and we ended up joining their band. Purple was the talk of every musician in the country - they had something new and very exciting.

Glenn Hughes is one of the most naturally talented musicians, but he's still copying Steve Wonder to this day, so I can't call him a bona fide member of Deep Purple.

My first contract was in 1965. There were six of us in this band - my band before Deep Purple - six in the band plus management, and the entire royalty rate was three-fourths of 1 percent.

I don't think anyone likes to be pushed around.

I've always been optimistic - I always expect the sun to come out.

I have heard that my Wikipedia entry is completely incorrect, but then again, so is everyone else's. I haven't bothered about that.

Our partying was governed by licensing hours. When the pub or club shut, that would be it.

Although he appeared in some awful movies, Elvis could also be pretty damn good as an actor.

I grew up moving from one council flat to another and finished up in a three-bedroom semi-detached on a council estate in Cranford, a suburb of Hounslow. This was in the days when there was still rationing, and we had to be thrifty.

Rock music had its own constituency, its own steering wheel. It was beyond the control of the establishment, and we saw TV as the enemy.

There used to be a time when people used to hold up cigarette lighters and candles at concerts, and the place was aglow to celebrate the end of the evening, or during a slow song, there was this congregational euphoria that used to exist. It still does, but now it's a question of iPhones being held up.

I love Buffalo. The people here are wonderful, genuine; they look you straight in the eye.

I think there's something about having a purpose in life and a sense of belonging that is more important than money for any human being.

The Hall Of Fame thing, it's an American thing. We don't have that in England or Germany or Australia or Russia or anywhere in the world apart from America. And it's an institution. What's that got to do with rock and roll?

I remember my uncle, who was a jazz pianist, when we did Deep Purple 'In Rock,' he ran from the room screaming, holding his ears: 'I can't hear anything. I can't hear any instruments.' And I was rubbing my hands going, 'Great.'

One of my greatest pleasures is writing on my Web site.

I assume I must have a pension, but I don't know for sure. I have heard of ISAs, but I can't tell you if I have any.

It was immaterial to me that Elvis didn't write his own songs. Those were very different days, and he selected whatever suited him best from material supplied by publishing houses and teams of writers - all of whom were extremely conscious of his style of delivery.

When you think about it, we sold about 120 million records, which relates to about £1.2 billion in the U.K. economy. We've seen very little of that.

It wasn't slung together by a producer and a publisher. We decided we were going to take hold of our music and let it evolve organically.

If you've got a wound, and it's just about to heal up, and it's got a nice scab on it, and you think in two or three days, that's gonna be completely healed, then somebody comes along and pokes it with a stick, and it opens up again. And that's what happens with the Ritchie-and-Deep Purple situation.

For a rock band, I didn't see the point in live albums. To my mind, you've got to be there.

The biggest income we make is from live performances, without any doubt. That's about a 4-to-1 ratio from anything else.

What happens is we finish the show, have a couple of drinks, go back to the hotel, talk, and that's it.

I've never been troubled by disappointment, and I get over it quickly. But I'm not good at making plans, and I don't have any ambitions. I never did.

I've done a lot of research on science and theology to try and get a better understanding of what happens to the human soul or what potential it has.

Deep Purple was sinking with Ritchie. We were playing to quarter houses in Europe, which is one of our strongest territories - in Germany. Smaller venues, and they weren't even full. So had we continued that way, and had Ritchie not walked out, we would have finished; that would have been the end of it.

Elvis's voice was unique. Like so many others, he had natural, technical ability, but there was something in the humanity of his voice, and his delivery.

When we arrive at the studio, we put the kettle on, have a cup of tea, say, 'How's the family? You still got that old car? Is that dog still alive?' and then we start jamming. That's how the songs get written.

I do ironing not only for myself but for everyone at home, everyone in the studio if they want it, and if I run out of ironing to do, I put everything back in the washing machine and get it out again clean so I have some ironing to do.

We were the first generation of rock & roll, but life goes on.

I like walking and hiking, and many of the ideas for songs have germinated from this.

I wake up every day looking forward to the concert that night. I don't think you need much more inspiration than that.

Singles - we hated it, going on 'Top Of The Pops' and all that rubbish.

It's a fine line between self-assuredness and arrogance.

If you think of a solo artist, you normally know them by their name; you don't normally describe their kind of music. You just say, 'It's so and so, or it's so and so.' But with bands, everyone feels an obligation to categorize them.

I once wrote a song called 'No Laughing in Heaven,' which was about not wanting to go to Heaven due to the company I'd be keeping, and with a few exceptions, the Hall of Fame is pretty much the same thing.

We soaked up everything from Beethoven to Chopin to Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.

I'm completely irresponsible, I'm afraid. I'm ignorant about money as a commodity - I have never really understood it.

I don't think happiness comes with money, but if you are hungry, you can't be as happy as if you aren't hungry.

My father was a storekeeper at a factory in west London.

In the early Seventies, I bought a dilapidated hotel in north Stoke for about £100,000 and spent the same amount again renovating it, putting in a guitar-shaped swimming pool, painting the bathrooms purple, and installing gold dolphin taps.

I hate it in America where the protocol seems to be you are expected to tip regardless of the quality of service. I like to tip when it's not being demanded of me, and if the service has been good, I tip quite generously.

We've never gone into the studio with prepared material... we never have.