भाव

There are two kinds of music - heavy metal and all the crap they play on radio and show on MTV.

My iPod is with me wherever I go. My iPod is all over the place - it's got Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Wagner, and then it goes into Slayer, Emperor, everything by Sabbath, everything by Queen, Tool, Pantera. I could just go on and on. I'm just a chameleon when it comes to music - all kind of music touch my senses.

[on the Judas Priest 2011 tour] As far as having the 'Spinal Tap' (This Is Spinal Tap (1984)) accoutrement - the Harley, the smoke, the fire, the lasers, the costumes - it's full-on 'Spinal Tap' times 12.

There will only ever be one Freddie Mercury.

The music lives longer than we do.

I've been a huge Queen fan since they began. I actually went and saw some of their very, very, very early shows in England, and they just blew me away; I just couldn't believe it. These guys were doing extraordinary things for that time in rock and roll.

Freddie (Freddie Mercury) is my ultimate hero. The closest I ever got to Freddie was in a gay bar in Athens on the way to Mykonos. We kind of glared at each other across the bar, in a kind of smiling, winking way. When we got to Mykonos I was determined to track him down, but I couldn't because he'd rented this huge yacht. It was festooned in pink balloons and it just kept sailing around the island. He's someone I wish I'd really met.

I feel a bit like Quentin Crisp these days, I've become the stately homo of heavy metal.

[on his trademarked moniker of Metal God] I don't want anybody else to be the metal god but me.

[on shaving his head] I was going bald, I didn't want to go out looking like that guy from Marillion, or Phil Collins - fuck that.

Queen were an incredible heavy metal band.

I've thought of putting together a dream concert involving three of the greatest names in heavy metal in one show - Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest. Who'd headline? Would it matter? It'd be pure metal heaven.