Patti Smith: I am a writer not a musician

Updated

Veteran rock star and poet Patti Smith said people's perceptions of her are "often so off the mark".

The American, whose 1975 debut album Horses is cited as being part of the influential Stateside punk movement, said she identifies herself as a writer rather than a musician.

The 68-year-old activist told the Telegraph Magazine: "I'm not a musician. People's concept of me is often so off the mark.

"I know what that tastes like, to be a rock-and-roll star - to have a limousine, to have girls screaming when they see you, girls trying to cut my hair, get a piece of me.

"But I don't walk around with a concept of myself as a rock-and-roll star, and certainly not as a musician, because I really can't play anything except primitively."

She added: "I'm sort of a loner. I write every day. My view of myself is more as a writer."

Advertisement