Albert Hammond

“The Strokes, you bond when you're 18, and you're friends. The feeling's different. When all of us get into a room, we feel like the same people from before. We weren't anybody; we were just hanging out. It's hard to understand if you're not in a band. You're one-fifth.”

“I would like to leave the world a better place than when I entered it. I would hope that by the time I die I could have learned from the years of living and hand something down.”

“I've got my advanced scuba diving license. I'm playing tennis and exercising. I ride my bike everywhere. I've been finding new things. I've been more creative in music and doing different videos. And just meeting different people and being around and present. I'm wonderful when I'm just on nothing.”

“After boarding school in Switzerland, at, like, 14 or 15, my life clicked, and I just realized, 'I don't want to be like anyone around me at my school. I don't think the world revolves around money.'”

“Things that excite me are these four different bands: Wire, with a song called 'Champs,' Misfits, with a song called 'Hybrid Moments,' R. Stevie Moore, and Wipers 'Wait A Minute.'”

“You really get your sense of women, to begin with, from your mom.”

“I like rock music that has melody, but it also makes you wanna get up and dance.”

“Guided By Voices was huge when I was 16. Then I got into the Beatles, then classical music, Beethoven.”

“I think that's one of the greatest gifts you get if you're successful at something like music or film or photography - any of the arts - you can sit there and think. It's so much fun to sit there and think and wonder about the world and the universe.”

“There are different people who got me into music, but what I liked about Beethoven is that even when I didn't understand it or it was too long, there's still something about it that drove me to it. Then it got me excited about actually learning music, like a theory of it.”

“Over time, naturally, you lose your innocence from gaining knowledge. You can't be innocent forever, but there's something in innocence you need to regain to be creative.”

“My personality can be extreme in all ways, even in positive ways; I've learned that.”

“I think the last book I cried in was Patti Smith's 'Just Kids.' I don't shy away from crying, though. I actually really enjoy being moved like that.”

“When you get together in a group, it becomes like a family, with the different personalities and the politics that comes with being in a band. It's different than bringing something in by yourself.”