I meet so many people that just sort of say, "I want to thank you for your music. It really helped me" or "It changed my life."

Life is a journey that's measured not in miles or years but in experiences, and the route your life takes is built not of roads but of songs.

I'm not a gangsta rapper. I rap about things that happen to me. I got shot five times. People was trying to kill me.

I first sang 'Holding Back the Years' in my earliest band, Frantic Elevators. When the Elevators split and I started Simply Red, I returned to the song and wrote the 'I'll keep holding on' chorus.

In Liverpool we'd only done one-hour sessions. In Hamburg we had to play for eight hours. We played very loud, bang, bang, all the time. The Germans loved it.

I was just 20 years old when I wrote Broken Arrow.