Every time when it comes to writing a book, I think, "I'm the last person in the world that should be doing this, I don't know anything, I can't do this." And I went through years of that with Into The Maelstrom.

I was associated with the Artist Placement Group in the early 1970s and David Hall, the video artist, was an Artist Placement Group artist. I was completely broke at that time, and he said to me, "Come and do some teaching" - he was head of department at Maidstone College of Art. And I went and did a couple of teaching days and practically the only person who showed up was David Cunningham [Flying Lizard's main man], with all of this finished work

If I'd thought, "I can't really play this instrument," I wouldn't have done it! But I didn't care, you know. I didn't care!

David's [Cunningham] a very interesting character. He has more integrity than is good for him. So, everything he did after that sort of undermined what he'd done. Other people who kind of took life more cheaply, would have really gone for it. David almost did everything he could to scupper the whole thing, which I very much admire, but of course it was deeply irritating then, because we wanted to make a bit of money! So we made this very catchy tune and then he added a bunch of weird stuff which was all very strange.

I'd entirely forgotten about Pass The Distance, and then I went to Japan in 2000, and was asked to do interviews with all these journalists, who were showing up with bootlegs of this record, asking me to talk about it. I was astonished. It kind of gained momentum.

I'd been listening to African-American music since the first record I ever bought, which was by Sam Cooke. And it sounds more like my private thoughts that I never thought I would be able to articulate - I never thought I would be able to express publicly.

People don't have to put you in a box. You can have the confidence to move across, and combine and learn from each different practice. They inform each other.