I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.
It's something I've always loved doing. I'm not one of the artists who comes in and just does my bit. I'm there every second of every day. That's my hands-on situation.
Being with my family is very important to me, and touring is very important to me, too, because it's who I am. It's what I do.
Youre always in a different headspace when you make each record, so hopefully theyre all different. You just pick up things that you wish you hadnt done on the first one.
Nothing like seeing the genesis of the relationship between an instrument and a child.
I think everybody has different priorities in their life. People live their lives differently. People become famous through all sorts of different reasons. . . some of it through art and some of it through just wanting to be famous. And I think how that all starts tends to reflect how you live your life daily.
I tend to write better when I'm not touring.
It's funny, because when you're younger you're in a rush to be 18 or 21 or whatever. But then you hit 30. And now, the days go by like hours. You think, 40, man, this could be the halfway point. It could be the three-quarters point, you know? Who knows?
The challenge for you is to decide not what is important, but what is most important and then focus your attention on that.
Baseball shaded my entire outlook on life, because that's how I first saw the world. I looked at everything, even today, through what I learned about the game. Like pacing yourself, focusing yourself, preparing yourself for what you want to do, keeping yourself healthy for the game. I do all that through the eyes of a ballplayer.
In German. I'm more sensitized to the details, to the emotions. In English, I wouldn't detect as much nuance.