Chris Rea

Rather than missing home when I'm on tour, I miss tour when I'm at home.

None of my heroes were big rock stars, and I thought, 'This isn't how it's meant to be.' It wasn't about making music so much as selling it.

You can't have F1 without Ferrari - you just can't have it. It's part of the theme that is the red car, and a lot of it is to do with the colour.

I didn't have any aspirations to be famous at all.

I love being on tour. That's the best job in the world, if only I had a different body.

If I'm ever stuck on the M25 - the 'Road to Hell' - I'll wind the window down and start singing, 'I'm driving home for Christmas' at people in cars alongside. They love it. It's like giving them a present.

I actually, truly do love my family. It's not a public relations exercise.

My father's family were Italian ice cream men, and the knowledge was passed on, so I ran an ice cream van while I was dating my wife.

I am in that unique little club where I went into music because I love music, not because I wanted to be rich and famous.

Once I faced the fact I was going to deal with illness for the rest of my life, I got on with what I really wanted to do.

It's bleak behind the Iron Curtain, although they do have the strongest vodka I've ever had in my life.

My ambition, a long time ago, was to be a film music writer. A compromise then was to be the guy who wrote songs for a band and played slide guitar. Then the singer didn't turn up for an audition, and I was the only one who knew the words. That was it - bingo! Life took a different course.