Soho has got to be at its centre. It's got such a history for rock, pop, poetry, jazz, writers, all those things, and I think it should be valued as such, and protected as this centre for bohemia.

I was quite naïve, a boy from Southport. When I went to art college in Leeds, I lived in a basement flat, and I heard clunking on the stairs all night, and I thought it was just nurses going to work on the night shift at the local hospital! Then I found out it was all working girls upstairs. I suppose I came from a protected background and had my eyes opened wide by that side of city life.

People come from all over the world to see this little place they've seen in movies and read about in history books: Soho.

You can't keep pursuing pop success, and chasing the past.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everything in the past is great and everything modern is terrible. But I do think cities should be a mix of old things and new things.

People always go on about sleaze, but I think it's only a small part of what I write about.

I thought, I might not look my best, I've forgotten half the words to my songs and I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress, but I've just got to get out there and do it.