Who is more inclined to bad behavior, classical musicians or rockers?
I haven’t experienced too much bad behavior, but you hear stories about orchestras on the road. Some musicians had to be escorted off a plane recently for drunken behavior, which is something you associate more with rock musicians. Record companies complain that they have to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of an album to make money. Where does that leave performers like you? Oh, what a drag. You know, I haven’t made any money off records for 20 years. I’ve made all my money off publishing. So I don’t care what the record industry whines about. Do you get a check every time they play ”Pump It Up” at a basketball game? Yeah, probably. I’m doing fine. I didn’t get into it to get rich. Do you know how to download music from the Internet? I was a computer operator in 1972, remember. But that’s like saying I used to be a blacksmith. I have never downloaded anything — except for the other night, the drummer on a piece of orchestral music I wrote for the London Symphony Orchestra sent
