Which raises the question about the burden of always being the offspring of .... Some of them - for example the Fonda or the Bridges - kids - did brilliant but lots of them didn't succeed and went to the "Betty Ford Clinic" or to the cemetery. Wouldn't it have helped to have some words about having no talent or advise on other professional alternatives?

"No, because you can't escape from the influence that your father has as an artist on you. Look at me. I hardly saw my Dad but from time to time he sent me a guitar when he traveled around. And when we met he often showed me some finger-board - tricks. No, already as a child, long before I was confronted with the question what I would be doing in future, music was a formed part of my life. And from this point of view you have to look at tragical figures like the son of Robert Mitchum. Of course, he saw his father on the set, and naturally he wanted to show everyone in Hollywood. For you as a child such a father whom everybody talks about, whose pictures you see everywhere, becomes a kind of hero. And of course you don't want anything more than to be like your hero."

However, there are people out there in England who don't respectfully look up to the old heroes of pop music instead they threaten them with thrash/fights or - if they are totally mad - wish them to hell.

"I know who you are talking about.  But besides that I think this behavior is absolutely childish, this behavior is a sad evidence of a great lack of respect. Oasis, for example, should be thankful that they are allowed to use so much from the store of the old heroes. No, I rather like Radiohead. They do their own stuff, so they don't have to say stupid things in the press or act like THE superstars.

"It isn't just this "F--- this" and "F--- that" - attitude of some musicians, no, the complete English music business seems to me like a bad joke. This is one of the reasons why I took control myself this time. I am too old to find myself - like it happened with the last album - on promo tour at six in the morning in front of the cameras of a stupid Children-TV-station."

© 1998 Rolling Stone Magazine