And if you listen to Irish music, they say that kilts came from the middle east. So really I'm an Arab. If you listen to the way someone like Sinead O'Connor sang. It could be Muslim. You know that angst that sort of ****. That wail. I think it's in our genes. I think certain stuff is in our genes, like nobody can dance like a black guy. It's in their genes. So we don't have oil, but we have poetry.

A lot of singers don't really know who they are. They have this massive insecurity and this massive ego and they are sort of pulled between both. I mean, why do you want a lot of people to look at you all the time and listen to you? There is something going on there, there is sort of need to express and attention. It's not just ego, it's some sort of complex thing and sometimes you create characters to say something you want to say and then you just throw yourself into that.

And if you listen to Irish music, they say that kilts came from the middle east. So really I'm an Arab. If you listen to the way someone like Sinead O'Connor sang. It could be Muslim. You know that angst that sort of ****. That wail. I think it's in our genes. I think certain stuff is in our genes, like nobody can dance like a black guy. It's in their genes. So we don't have oil, but we have poetry.

The Catholic church had a huge profound influence on me in that as you get older you realize that you can't blame everything; that there is good and bad, and things get misdirected. So I would call myself a black Catholic. I still have this attraction to it because all religions I'm not a fan of. I'm a fan of sort of belief in spirituality. So I would be into Christ rather than the Catholics.

I really disliked the fact that our Irish culture is what make us and made us and will make us. And when money came in, we rejected it so quickly. Not even rejected, we didn't think. We just got lazy and all the girls started getting fat and that's not good is it.

I wanted all the music to sound strong. It's all down to the restoration and mastering. In many ways I feel the work in general was never properly mastered in the first place. To me, making the music sound the way we wanted it was by far my biggest goal with the re-issues.

I don't even think any stimulants really help writing. You talk to most guys and they say, "Hey. I wrote this." And they're out of their head or they had a few beers or a bottle of whiskey. You wake up the next morning, it's usually pretty crap. But you know Dylan Thomas wrote some great poetry. Brendan Behan. You never know but ultimately I'd say you have to get up early in the morning and you're usually sober when you write your good stuff; it's hard work. So alcohol, keep it for chilling out, fun, and having a good time. Not for work.