Greg Lake

“I picked up the guitar at 12 yrs old - basically, my mother and father bought it for me for Christmas. I played one at my friend's house; when I say played it, I just played around with it at my friend's house. It just struck me as something I really wanted.”

“Certain things you learn through exposure. It's really the elements which make up any artist. You really learn by example. You learn by influence. And some people have a huge impact on you, and that's how you become the artist you are.”

“I feel with ELP that I wasn't making the most of my life and I wasn't making the most of my creativity. I was marking time. I don't want to do that. Life is to short.”

“You often hear people say 'Luck is self made.' I think it is, to a certain extent; if you work hard on something, you are more likely to be lucky than if you don't. That having been said, I do believe during in my career I have been at the right place at the right time with the right people.”

“Unless you go forward then you are going back.”

“Songs are like children. They are all special to me - you can't just pick a favorite. Of course, 'Lucky Man' was a special tune with a wonderful story behind it. They have all done different things.”

“Things like 'Lucky Man' were never written to even be a record, let alone a hit record.”

“'Lucky Man' I wrote when I was twelve years old. I wrote it when I first was given a guitar by my mother. I only knew four chords, but I used them all to write that song. And it just stayed with me, stayed in my head. I didn't even write it on a piece of paper. I remembered it.”

“I think good music comes from the heart. That's my belief.”

“Making a comeback is one of the most difficult things to do with dignity.”

“The less people that are on the stage, there's more drama. You start living the music with each individual. When you see a band with ten people on stage, just a huge ensemble, you don't know who's doing what.”

“The greatest music is made for love, not for money.”

“Music is an emotional experience, and that is what imprints itself on the soul. And I think for me, any great art is art which communicates human emotion.”

“I'll have periods when I write and periods when I don't. But you don't want it to become a discipline, really. If it becomes a discipline, it becomes a chore, and that's no good. To make art you need to be inspired.”

“Philosophically, what I have learned is to thy own self be true. That is the biggest lesson of all. Relax; music is fun. To many people take it to seriously because of the money involved.”

“The early ELP albums were pioneering in a way.”

“When I was writing my autobiography, these songs came up from time to time which were important to me, and I realized that what they really represented was, they'd come from this age of shared music.”

“When we made that album with Gary Moore, I was still kind of searching for the right direction for myself. Although the music is quite good the direction was like a box of fireworks that caught light all at the same time.”

“Most of my career has been about standing on a stage performing music to an audience, and once the show is over, they go home and I go on to the next show.”

“There is no standing still because time is moving forward.”