Part of why I started a band was due to feelings of shyness and social ineptitude. I saw it as some way of being able to interact with people from a safe distance. It's always been about trying to get to know people. Albeit, it's a bit of a contradiction because you can't really get to know people when they're 10 feet away and there's a big mass of them.

My basic position is that the more mixed the society and the more mobility there is in it, the better. That's what makes things interesting. When you get a homogenous society, it's very, very dull, whether that's all working class or all upper class, because everybody thinks the same, everybody looks the same.

You get to a certain age and you just want to prove that you can still rock - that you've still got it.

I recently spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield, England, which is where I'm from. I wouldn't move back there, but it's funny when you spend a bit of time in the place where you were brought up. You kind of realize how that place has had quite a big effect on you or made you a certain way.

It's good that I managed to hoodwink so many people. I am actually not that nice a person.

Well, once you've resigned yourself to the fact that you are the more mature pop performer and you're past the age you ever thought you would do it, you might as well do it as long as you can. As long as I can still lift a microphone, then I'll do it, you know.

I'd been thinking I'd have to learn how to play really well, but obviously the message of punk was that you just learn three chords in a week and you're away.