I always say it took me 10 minutes to write 'Cars,' but if I am honest it could have been even less than that - and it has been a really successful song over the years. It is still massively used, in advertising, in films, and people do cover versions of it a lot.

I'm not good at happy, lightweight kind of music. I'm not really good at pop music. "Cars" is probably the only true pop song I ever wrote. I wish I could write more, but I'm not very good at it.

I was always a bit different. I had a very happy childhood, but I could never hang on to mates.

I've got Asperger's syndrome and I'm not a very good people person, so I've always been more comfortable around machinery. Not in a weird way - I don't want to marry my car or anything stupid like that!

I think any song should sound good just played on a solitary instrument with the vocal. If you have those basics you have all you need. The production then just polishes that idea into the finished thing.

I've spent a lot of time in the United States and I'm not under any illusions that it's a crime-free nirvana. I'm well aware it has plenty of problems, though they seem to be associated with particular areas.

Ultravox were the blueprint for what I wanted to do, but I stumbled across them by accident.