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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.'

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.