I'd got very successful, everyone knew who I was, but I felt very empty.

Being in the Boy Scouts, you don't think about whether people are gay or straight. You're busy putting up tents and learning to cut sausages.

I mean, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, I think the young kids sell lot of records. But for an older kind of artist, more of a sort of heritage, vintage type of artist, you have to think outside the box.

I also tried to avoid doing obvious dance records.

Leigh [Bowery] would make up stories about people committing suicide or going on hunger strikes because they were refused entry at the door.

The Taboo crowd was certainly less precious. They were happy to end up in a pile of vomit and booze at the end of the night. It was antifashion, in a sense. They were just as obsessive as the New -Romantics but they acted like they didn't care.

I suppose there is a lot of toughness in me.