My greatest fear is of being in a plane crash. I’ve been flying regularly since I went to Havana with my parents in 1957. It was a Stratocruiser with giant propellers, and I feel as if I’ve been through the whole history of aviation over the years, but it hasn’t become any less terrifying. I remember sitting next to Bryan (Ferry) on a Roxy Music tour when our plane was struck by lightning between Chicago and Washington. That taught me the power of prayer.
I no longer worry about my career. It took me years to get off the rollercoaster of competing as a musician, always worrying about how much money I was making. Now I’m much happier.
I regret that I didn’t have more time with my father. He died when I was 15 and I feel I never got to know him.
From my parents I learnt the values of travel and cultural ifference. We were always on the move — Cuba, Hawaii, Venezuela — and this itinerant lifestyle not only taught me to cope but gave me an early insight into how different people live. My father was very English, my mother Colombian and that duality has informed my whole life. I took my mother’s name because it seemed a little more appropriate for a band member than Targett-Adams.
I hate any dictator, of course. But I grew up in the midst of the Cuban Revolution, I experienced the shooting, the murders under Batista. I formed my left-of-centre political views from these experiences.
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I admire anyone who overcomes adversity without bitterness. My friend Robert Wyatt fell out of a window in the 1970s and has been in a wheelchair ever since. But that hasn’t stopped him making inspiring music.
I cope with disappointment by acknowledging it and moving on. I’m very much a glass half-full person.
When I am annoyed I tell myself that is it’s OK to feel like that, that annoyance is often justified and there is no point hiding it.
My favourite song is a Spanish one called Paloma. It was used in Almódovar’s Talk to Her. I played it for my mother in Havana when I was learning the guitar and it has stayed with me throughout my life.
My favourite book is Gabriel García Márquez’s autobiography Living to Tell the Tale. He went to school near where I lived as a child in Baranquilla, Colombia.
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The worst thing about family life is the selfishness of teenagers. I’ve seen it in my own and in others’. There’s no cure for it.
The unfinished business I have is Roxy Music. I believe we can make a new album and I keep banging on to the other guys about it, but I think I’m more optimistic than them. It took us 18 years to get the last world tour together.
If I could change one law it would be Murphy’s Law. It doesn’t fit with my positive outlook.
I relax by swimming. I learnt in the ocean around Hawaii and I was quite good at school.
My most embarrassing moment, despite what I just said, involves swimming. Having splashed around in oceans on the other side of the world I suddenly found myself, aged 9, in a cold pool at an English boarding school. I didn’t know how to go under water without holding my nose, so being forced to dive to the bottom in front of the whole class, flailing with one arm, was deeply humiliating.
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I’d like to be remembered for my music. I hope that it might attain some kind of resonance.
My attitude towards death is influenced by the loss of my father. I realised then that death is a part of life, that you have to accept the inevitable. My mother died of cancer ten years ago and there was a sense of relief then that it was all over. You have to get on with things.
The piece of advice I would pass on is: always turn a negative into a positive. Phil Manzanera’s new album is 6pm (Hannibal).