The Tornados – ‘Telstar’

There are two or three pieces of music that made me want to play guitar, and ‘Telstar’ is one. I heard it and had to get the record – my older brother got it for me. I loved The Rolling Stones, too. 'The Last Time' was very important for me and the first ‘Satisfaction’, with the fuzzbox. A handful of tracks drove me wild.

I started playing very bad guitar through the microphone lead, but I had the good luck to be raised the first 14 first years of my life very near the Clignancourt flea market in Paris, where there were a lot of gypsies who played guitar all day. They loved children, so after shopping, before we went home, we'd spend an hour or two every day watching them and talking with them. They were really gifted. They didn't care about money, about having the best guitar. That's music.

Playing guitar was so important as a teenager. I needed it like oxygen. I had to play every day for at least an hour.