I called all adults by their first names, and my mum was just another adult. I was the firstborn of my generation in the family, but because I was so close to my parents in age, they treated me with a kind of adult respect. They talked to me as an equal.
I grew up in the era of the concept album. What I do now is pick up on singles, and they are their own complete stories; you don't necessarily have to hear the rest of the album because I don't think albums are created like that anymore. They get songs from all over the place.
There's been this strange irony to my whole life. All my original bandmates have died, when I was the most wild and most reckless of us all. But I'm still here.
When I was very young, there was a lot of music at home, mostly jazz. I was walking around singing and pretending I was in bands from a very young age. But the first song that was really personal to me was 'Blue Suede Shoes'.
With Sumthin Else Music Works, I wanted to spread the love and give newcomers a chance to make it because something that really helped me were all the people who had given me an opportunity when I was putting my career together.
Everything about my life was culturally rich, and all the people I met sort of reinforced the wackiness that was normally inside of me. No one said, 'You can't do that,' until I got to real record companies, that is.
I'd probably be a super wealthy guy if I had sat around writing songs and getting them placed like everyone else I know. But I write songs about people or after I meet them and they're somewhat biographical - they're fiction but also non-fiction.
Trust me, the only real way to understand 'Chic' is in highfalutin terms. Our chord progressions were based on European modal melodies. I made those early 'Chic' records to impress my jazz friends.
The only person I have regrets about is Miles Davis. He and I had become good friends after we did a photo shoot, and coincidentally, we kept running into each other at parties and stuff. I regret not having written a hit for Miles Davis.
My responsibility is to the artist first. There's something that artists intrinsically know about their music and their fanbase that neither the record company nor the producer really knows.
I've never cancelled any public appearance, simply because that's what my life is; it's doing my work, and I never want to stop doing my work unless it becomes impossible for me to do it.
