 I read that before you went on stage you used to drink and smoke to make your voice sound older...
Robert Palmer: Oh, that's a load of rubbish. Rubbish! What happens often - although I'm not particularly a victim of this sort of thing - is that somebody will make a quote, or invent a remark and it gets printed, ends up on the 'net and it becomes currency. And some of them are so bizarre!  Some idiot got generic terms mixed up and wrote that I was 'white-eyed soul'. Now what the hell does that make me, an albino!? And it got reprinted! Another dreadful one was the story that there was a whole women's movement against the video for 'Addicted To Love'. This was some woman in one obscure paper somewhere and it got picked up. Really everyone thought it was a glamorous joke, which is what it was, but that story stuck around. Part of the fun of doing this stuff is setting the record straight. So as for smoking and drinking to change my voice, that's bizarre. In fact the truth is when I go on tour it's salads and water in that I can't sing on a full stomach, I'm too busy digesting. And then when you come off stage everything's shut because it's midnight, and I'm certainly not going to eat junk food. So it's an enforced discipline. The pounds fall off, and then you come off the road and they pile back on! But I'm still wearing the same trousers I had ten years ago... although they're snug.
So looking back on your career what work are you most proud of and what would you quietly sweep under the carpet if you could?
Robert Palmer: 'Vinegar Joe' I would happily sweep under the carpet, but that was my apprenticeship and I didn't feel comfortable with what it was. What am I most proud of... generally the overview of the catalogue that the new compilation represents. I just think it's great to be able to fill a CD with songs that most people have heard and that have been in the Top 10. That's great. Some people people put out Best Of Hits and there are two big songs on it and the rest, well... I don't want to be bitchy about it.
So the body of work?
Robert Palmer: Yeah. It keeps me afloat, it gives me a perspective, it keeps me moving forward and I don't like to repeat myself so it pushes my imagination.
Eric Thorngren once described you as 'a musicologist above all', so what are you listening to at the moment that's turning you on? And what's making your skin crawl?
Robert Palmer: Anything by Gonzalez Rubalcaba is unbelievable. I've been listening to the best of Django Reinhardt. There's a new album by Terence Trent D'Arby, who now goes by the name of Sananda Maitreya, believe it or not, and it's fantastic. A lot of it is too obscure to mention. You see, I get home and there's packages asking 'do you want to record this, do you want to produce that' and I go through it all and I find these gems from someone's demo in South Africa, or outtakes from somwhere, and I sometimes find wonderful stuff. To some extent it's a drag because people come over to my house and I make compilations on mini-discs and I put it on and they say 'what's this, where did you get this?'. And it's such a drag that they haven't heard this great stuff so I'm writing lists down and it's just because of my enthusiasm for listening to music from everywhere and not having any musical prejudices. Except I don't like broadway show music, it's too much posturing and not enough content. Generally, and especially in cities, there's this homegenised force feeding of what is hip and then the kids take sides. Actually musicians are the worst - 'I only listen to classical' 'Oh, well I only listen to heavy metal'. I don't like that. I just absorb everything and if it's good it's good, if there's a spirit to it and there's something coming out of it and I'm entertained. Whereas if I find it merely a package I don't know what it is they're trying to sell me.
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