There's nothing I like more than a writer who can sing, or a musician who has a book out.

Novels may have taken care of the emotional business for me, which has allowed music to be more emotional for me.

With me more than anybody it seems silly having a stage name, and there wasn't any particular difference between me and John Wesley Harding. There wasn't any need to draw that line. I just happened to draw it.

The only problem with conjuring people is they insist on getting paid, unlike a writer who would do a reading for nothing.

If somebody had said to me back in 1988 that I'd still be making music in 25 years' time, to start with I would have keeled over with shock because I wouldn't have believed them.

When I was writing this new bunch of songs, I was singing a lot lower, because they were more intimate in a way. I had to come up with a way to frame the music that was intimate.

I took the name originally as a kind of disguise because I didn't want people to know I was about to embark on a s****y musical career that would last five months. And a lot of people took funny names back then.