I realized sometime in the early '80s that if I didn't do something - like planning for the future in a way, a kind of pension or something - that if I didn't do something there and then, I was going to be condemned to forever present my three years as a pop star, condensed, as a stage act for the rest of my life. Because that's normally what happens to people in the pop business.

I realized sometime in the early '80s that if I didn't do something - like planning for the future in a way, a kind of pension or something - that if I didn't do something there and then, I was going to be condemned to forever present my three years as a pop star, condensed, as a stage act for the rest of my life. Because that's normally what happens to people in the pop business.

My latest theory is that it's - well, I describe it as, like, being in an apartment with kind of thin walls. And in the apartment next door, they've got a radio tuned constantly on - tuned to a really cool radio station. It's on all the time. And you can just hear it coming through the wall all the time.

When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.

I use the name and the thought very, very easily as a sort of comfort - as a kind of comfort, in some way. And in that way, it's just like having a friend, I suppose.

Later in life, suddenly, if you're an outsider, it's something to be celebrated, I think, rather than getting on people's nerves.

The world is full of musicians who can play great, and you wouldn't cross the road to see them. It's people who have this indefinable attitude that are the good ones.