I think the only music I didn't listen to was country and western, and that holds to this day.

Having not really written any generational songs - I think maybe two or three of the songs that I've ever written have any bearing on the age of the listener. My stuff tends to be far more concerned with the spiritual and with subjects like isolation and being miserable.

To not be modest about it, you'll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I've worked with have done their best work by far with me.

The Internet is merely a new means of communication, that's all it is. It serves the purpose of getting information, which it is fantastic at. I mean, I live by the Internet in terms of research and it's incredible - there's nothing that you can't find out about. It's not stopped me going to bookshops but I must say that I don't go into as many because any book I want.

My sexual nature is irrelevant. I'm an actor, I play roles, fragments of myself.

Some make you sing and some make you scream. One makes you wish that you'd never been seen. But there's a shop on the corner that's selling papier mache, making bullet-proof faces, Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay. If you want it, boys, get it here, thing.

The public, obviously, they takes things in a very simplest fashion and so they should. That's why we have such wonderful television.