I'm not saying I wasn't responsible for my actions; that sounds like I'm trying to excuse myself. But I was not very responsible. There's a distinct difference. I was completely irresponsible, in fact. And far from carefree - careless with everything. With everything that I really care about. And I think that inasmuch as it was said that we fed ourselves to the lions, you could say that whatever the incident was, it was symptomatic of the condition I was in, and that I deserved what happened regardless of the intentions of the remarks.
But it was only quite recently that I realized that it's not only the man on the street, as it were, who's never heard of me otherwise, who's only read People - that it's not only people like that who know only this about me. When we were recording Imperial Bedroom, Bruce Thomas was in the next studio while I was doing a vocal. Paul McCartney was there, and Michael jackson came in to do a vocal - everything was nice until somebody introduced Bruce as my bass player. And suddenly - there was a freeze-out. Michael Jackson was - "Oh, God, I don't dig that guy... I don't dig that guy."
He had heard about it third hand, from Quincy Jones. Two guys I have a tremendous amount of admiration for. It depressed me that I wouldn't be able to go up to him - I wouldn't be able to go up and shake his hand, because he wouldn't want to shake my hand. Or James Brown, for that matter. But what could I say? What could I say? How could you explain such a thing? But there is nothing I'd like more.