Keith Emerson

They were keen for me still to play the piano, which I was going to, but 45 minutes of piano would be extremely boring. I like a bit of light and shade.

Find a good teacher, as I found for my sons. I feel the worst thing you can do is to try and teach your own children yourself, because there is a natural rebellion that occurs.

I’ve gone through hell and back.

We can all put weight on or lose weight.

Since this our first show, I think they’ll see us sweat a lot.

Next year I’m going to be a guesting soloist with orchestras all over Europe, to start off with.

I’ve broken my nose, I’ve broken ribs. You name it. In fact, we just got back from South America, and I fell over a monitor speaker on the stage and almost ended up in the front row of the audience. I managed to sprain my wrist on that one but luckily nothing was broken.

I’m proud of my kids, they are doing what they want to do.

If they want a photograph, then just take it.

The best thing about this band is I’m the leader!

If it wasn’t good, I wouldn’t be going back out on tour.

I don’t care who I play to, as long as they enjoy listening to what I play.

We manage to bounce ideas off one another. Every band fights, but at the end of the day, we’re very positive about the way we fight. At least we come out with a result.

I’ve never written a book before.

I love my mother dearly, but it wouldn’t be suitable for me to live with her all the time.

I had written movie scores, television series, played with other people. Carl had done the same with Asia, with other bands, everything. We weren’t about to entrust Greg automatically with a production credit.

At the Isle of Wight, the sound went out and kind of kept on going. And I wasn’t… when I came off stage I was kind of unhappy about how we had played. But now, I listen back to those recordings and it’s not bad.

I consider everything I compose a gift.

I guess when Rick is finished with his Journey to the Centre of the Earth, then we might have a go at something. We’d like to, we’re open to it, and we’ve been talking about it.

I remember that I used to mix with my friends who had brothers and sisters. I was an only child.

There’s a clip where he had someone miming me running around from keyboard to keyboard. Oh dear, I am sure a lot of people didn’t know what he was going on about.

My sons are into German music, but they are into all kinds of music.

If you’re a good parent, see the changes that are happening in your kids.

You’ve got to keep things flying.

I’m not a rich man, and Greg Lake is certainly not. I don’t know how he can survive. I don’t know how he can be that suicidal. But having said that, I’d love to be there to help Greg.

I was always playing the Hammond Organ back to front even during the days of the Nice, going back to 1968. Really what I was doing there, was choosing notes at random and trying to make some sense of them, improvising back to front.

I don’t regard myself as a great classical or jazz pianist. I like country music, but I’m not a great player. I just like music. Drums ‘n’ bass is pretty exciting and I’d love to explore it.

We’ll be presenting a broad spectrum of the music and looking at how the younger guys can carry it on.

If we didn’t do the tour, it would have been disastrous.