John Mayall

I always make it a point to pick songs on which players really shine.

The blues fitted in with the early 60s, the social way of life at the time.

Joe’s been my drummer for 14 years, and we’ve been buddies for six years.

I never really thought about becoming a professional musician.

It’s part of what the blues does, to write about these things. JB Lenoir was the main one in this regard – he wrote about Korea, too, in fact. Songs that reflect these current situations – in his case, racial issues for the most part: in my case, what has happened to me, and I was in Korea.

I get most of my news from the Jon Stewart Daily Show. It’s the most level commentary you can find. You have to laugh, because it’s all so true. It’s the closest thing to a counterculture.

My first kiss was when I was 12.

We were too rough at the edges to be a pop group.

There is nothing wrong with a woman welcoming all men’s advances as long as they are in cash.

I think I appear very innocent and soft, but I’m actually very dark and edgy. It’s a weird dichotomy.

[On being told that he should be an agent with him having no acting ‘gifts’. And saying that you need to know absolutely nothing to be an agent.] I thought that’s the job for me.

I do like to start on time; I like to set the bar high for people.

I found myself a sophisticated, educated American. He’s not an actor. He’s traveled the world. He knows where Europe is, unlike a lot of Americans. He’s very cultured, but he’s all man.

In my neighborhood if you’re too aggressive, you intimidate someone, they kill you. Or if you decide to be emotional and you start crying, you’re a victim. You know, the kid in the schoolyard that doesn’t want to fight always leaves with a black eye. You have to find a way to stay in the middle, somewhere where people just don’t mess with you because they know that you don’t have a problem with it if it goes there.

We rely more on enthusiasm than actual skill. Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically and people will like it more.

There’s no substitute to being successful on an actual chart.

[On roles resembling the title character in ‘Penelope’] I like this girl because she is a bit of a bad-ass. I grew up watching movies with people like Barbara Stanwyck, and sometimes I get frustrated that there aren’t a lot of great female characters out there that young women can look at and go, ‘I want to be like that’. I go to movies and yell at the women on-screen, ‘Shoot him; just shoot him.’ I mean, why why does the guy always have to shoot him?

Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way.

We’re all comedy fans in my family. My parents mainly wouldn’t let me watch stuff that was either annoying to them, or just garbage. My dad wouldn’t let us watch ‘The Flintstones’ if he was home, because he said it was a rip-off of ‘The Honeymooners’. But he would let us stay up really late in the summer and watch old ‘Honeymooners’.

I’ve always had problems with guys!

To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.