 I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that. |
| Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play. |
| Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat. |
| The future is keeping you out of the present time. |
| When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration. |
| I'm not a rock singer and I don't want to be a rock singer. I'm not interested. It doesn't seem to get across. |
| I don't feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That's what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it. |
| As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music. |
| If it's what you do and you can do it, then you do it. |
| My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing. |
| In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing. |
| Hearing the blues changed my life. |
| If you're a pop singer, you don't need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over. |
| The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on. |
| I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first. |
| I'm very lucky, I'm happy with life because my experiences led me to do what I had to do. I don't have any regrets whatsoever. |
| You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works. |
| Music is spiritual. The music business is not. |
| I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity. |
| I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn't mean anything to me. |
