Lionel Richie hopes his female fans 'never stop' throwing underwear at him on stage.

The 62-year-old singer signed a recording contract with his band The Commodores in 1968 and has gone on to achieve immense solo success too. Although he is getting older his followers are as passionate as ever and the star hopes things remain that way.

'May they never stop doing that,' he laughed, when asked by Q magazine if women still throw their underwear at him onstage. 'There's a thing called respect and then there's a thing called too much respect. When they stop throwing underwear, it's too much respect.'

Lionel claims the secret to his success is his ability to write a solid love song. He believes romantic lyrics are the ones most people want to hear, insisting no matter what the genre of music emotions will always feature in songs.

'Love never goes out of style. You find the story that goes along with that and you've got show business,' he said. 'I don't care if you're a gangster rapper, sooner or later you're gonna get to, 'I love you.''

Lionel also spoke about the way the industry has grown since he started out.

While he doesn't mind people using lines from his music if they have spoken to his team about it, he thinks some laws need to be tightened up. The singer worries lazy song writing is making music stagnate.

'I don't mind people sampling and then giving me half the money for it. But when you sample it and say, 'Thanks very much,' I call it robbery,' Lionel said. 'But we went through that period where the laws hadn't caught up with technology and so everybody's record had James Brown on it saying, 'Huh,' and 'Hit me.' I think that was probably the end of creativity.'