When I was growing up, albums were my closest friends, as sad as that may sound - Joy Division's 'Closer,' or Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Heaven Up Here'... I had a more intimate relationship with those records than I did with most of the people in my life.

When I tour I'm going to countries to play music for people. My presence in a country is not an endorsement or a condemnation of that country's policies. My presence in a country is an effort to connect with people through playing music.

It takes a unique woman to see me as any sort of catch.

If you look at someone like Joe Strummer or John Lennon, when you heard their music you knew that they wrote it and they cared about it.

Personally I find the democratic chaos of the Internet fascinating, and for the most part really benign.

When playing big festivals, I tend to play big, over the top techno tracks, like hands in the air songs that make sense being played in front of 30,000 people. I steer away from subtlety in the interests of big bombastic dance music.

I'm definitely a fan of public humiliation.