My parents, especially my mother, were no influence on me whatsoever.

Now that I can see it's the queen's new clothes Now that I can hear all your poison prose Now that I can talk with my tongue unfroze I'm not so sure of Santa or the buck tooth fairy There are no words for me inside your dictionary

I've always liked the idea of improvised music. Improvised anything. It's what conversation is.

The early gigs were pretty panicky - and great, sweaty fun. We were brand new to most people, and they were willing to take anything brand new, for the first time in years.

We did a gig at the Marquee and we were supposed to be paid five pounds but we never got it, and it cost us something like 10 pounds in petrol to get there to do it. So what we did was steal some equipment from The Marquee.

I was getting Monkees Monthly and there was a competition to draw a Monkee. I did a caricature of Micky Dolenz and won 10 pounds-a fantastic sum of money for me then. I bought a secondhand tape recorder, which further launched me. They've been very responsible for me getting started.

If it's a good LP, you'll get that tingle that makes you put it on again no matter what your initial reaction was. On the other hand, if you don't get that tingle, you'd better take it straight down to the record exchange.