I knew Fred since I was 14 and was first going to the Old Town School, Fred used to work part-time in the store. Every time I wrote a song Fred would turn on his really good high-class tape recorder, reel-to-reel, and record it. So he's got recordings of me on guitar singing all my songs in his apartment long before I ever recorded for a recording company. I never found out what happened to the tapes.

I was always keen to do a solo album. I just wanted it to be the right time and the right place so that I could actually work properly on the songs that I wanted to do before I got too old.

It's the way I like to work for these kinds of songs [like "Peace Trail"]. It was the right time of the month; everything was looking good.

That was a great period. We were like kings of the jungle then, and we were very close to the Stones.... I spent a lot of time with them, and it was great.

We were four guys... I met Paul, and said, 'You want to join me band?' Then George joined and then Ringo joined. We were just a band that made it very, very, big, that's all. Our best work was never recorded.

At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.