Mick Hucknall

"I had a spate of being run over between the ages of 11 and 13. I was quite a rambunctious child, I had a little moped I used to ride illegally. I got hit by cars three times because I was a very day-dreamy kid."

"I knew I was famous the day I played football with mates in L.A. I scored a goal and Rod Stewart jumped on top of me. I thought: 'I had a poster of you on my wall when I was 12.'"

"I'm from the punk generation, but I make romantic, soft soul music. I like the bizarre disconnect of that but, clearly, some people don't."

"I'm quite happy being famous for what I do but I'm not happy about being famous for the sake of being famous."

"I've always thought my dad was fantastic and now I'm a dad myself I can see what an incredible sacrifice he made as a man in the 60s - he was there every day for me, cooked my meals and shaped me."

"My dad knew I was mad about music. While he worked as a barber he would hear songs on the radio and we'd have endless discussions about them. So I got my first record player when I was 11 years old."

"My dad was one of the reasons I kept Simply Red going so long. I was brought up to stick at things. I was the only songwriter in Simply Red, so I could have toured under my own banner. But I'd developed the name, so I stuck with it."

"My mum left when I was three and my dad never remarried."

"When we treat music as an industrial commodity, and young people as merely consumers, we overlook the joy of participating in music... of learning to play an instrument, of joining a band or an orchestra, and playing gigs."

"You live the life of a gipsy when you are on tour, and that's not ideal for family life."