Jesus Christ was the biggest blight on the human race, he was. And all them socialists and communists - second rate Christianity.

I've had to try and find a way over the years of writing narratively that doesn't really require you to sit down and work out what the story's about. You're brought into a sort of sequence of images that have that emotional resonance, but it's kind of irrelevant what the actual story is. It's taken me maybe 13 albums or something to work that out.

It's very important that the music has a sense of adventure to it, and that it's done by the seat of your pants. There's a kind of nervy element about it.

At school I was an anti-magnet for women.

The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.

The songs that I like are the ones that you can't visualize, that are just cries from the heart - those very straight, direct songs that make rock & roll music so wonderful.

At the end, we're kind of observers - creative people, I mean. I feel like an observer, and I'm pretty much able to step out of things and see how things are playing out.