"I can’t remember how I discovered this. I can’t remember where I heard it, or the shop I bought it from. In those days you bought records because you thought the cover was cool, and hoped that the music matched the sleeve. Even to this day it sounds like it could have been made last week. Ted Templeman did amazing job — it’s the reason Van Halen got him. Ronnie Montrose was an incredible guitar player, and Sammy Hagar — even to this day — is a stunning vocalist. And the thought that Ronnie Montrose and Bill Church (the bass player) actually played with Van Morrison [on Tupelo Honey and Saint Dominic’s Preview] beggars belief. Denny Carmassi’s drumming was right up there with Bonham. The negativity around the band was probably the only thing that stopped them from going places, and because people thought they were poor man’s Zeppelin. The album was very reminiscent of Zeppelin, but its production was bigger. It’s just a really good slice of American rock, but it sounds very British."

"This is a film — and this is kind of going away from this relationship theme — but this is a film that, when I was little, I loved. I mean, I’ve loved it my whole life. I don’t know what that says about me, but I loved Sunset Boulevard. I was a big old-movie fan when I was, you know, older than most people should be when they’re older-movie fans. [Gloria Swanson is] just so spectacular in that film and it sort of formed my idea of that raw, dramatic acting. And the writing… The writing in that movie is unbelievable. So many incredible one-liners. It’s one of those movies that you can watch now and you’re just, like, “Damn, that was a good line,” you know? Like, God, that was some good writing back then. The thing is that movies written that way wouldn’t fit in, really, these days. It would sound strange, like you couldn’t really do it now. But thank God we have them."