Robert Plant

You feel quite distant by playing at huge stadiums year after year, where you only can see a great darkness in front of you

I don’t have a recollection of mostly anybody I’ve hung out with.

Does anyone remember laughter?

My mother was a gypsy, and she had a lot of dark blood in her, and her hair was very, very thick – she couldn’t even get a brush through it. So I have been very fortunate. And every time I go to cut it off, hairdressers refuse to do it.

I wanted my voice to be a tenor sax, really.

So when I come across as being everybody’s mate and nice and humble, I’m only nice and humble to a certain degree; the other side of me is arrogantly determined to do what the f**k I want.

[on filming Red Eye] I loved the action sequences, running though an airport in heels and all that stuff. That was really fun.

I usually don’t listen back to the shows but I finally did. Now I know the one thing that’s gonna make it even better than it already is!

I would say that one of your greatest accomplishments, Amy Poehler, is that you have so successfully used your art and comedy as a source of positivity in the world, by creating Smart Girls [an online community for girls, encouraging them to be their authentic selves], by making [Leslie in] Parks and Rec not only a positive feminist character but creating a good-hearted worldview within that program.

We (pop stars) are people not androids. We’ve got views. I’ve got opinions and I don’t see why I shouldn’t use a bit of my art to put them over. I think music is one of the most powerful media forces in the world today.

Right now, I do not like kids at all. I mean, I love my fans and everything, but when you have kids following you around all day, it’s like, “Ugh, kids!” Maybe that will change when I get older.

I’ve known Daniel since I was 22. We did a play together in London many years ago.

I think that passion and love and pain are all bearable, and they go to make love beautiful.

I’m speaking for all of us. I’m the spokesman for a generation.

And now that you have a child you have to clean up your act, ’cause you can’t drink anymore. You can’t come home drunk and go, ‘Hey, here’s a little switch: Daddy’s gonna throw up on you!’

So, I think it has to do with the product and what you take to the public. If they like it, they’re going to come see you, and if they don’t, and if you’re kind of getting out of the trendy line of things, then they won’t come see you.

If my fans want to do something for me when that time comes, I say, don’t waste your money on me. Help the homeless. Help the needy… people who don’t have no food… Instead of some big funeral, where they come from here and there and all over. Save it.

When I’m alone, I can sleep crossways in bed without an argument.

My career has been a combination of hard work and timing. Working with Stevie Wonder at the Kennedy Center Honors was timing. The Tonight Show was timing. Carnegie Hall, that was timing. My marriage was timing. I was ready, I wanted to know what it was like.

Touring is tough. You’re almost in a haze because you don’t really know where you are half the time: You’re in a hotel room one moment, and the next thing you know, you’re onstage performing for 60,000 people, then you’re back on an airplane. It’s very hectic and I couldn’t do it without my family.

Being good is about being an all-round contributor in the great world of music.