To be quite honest, John Lennon had questionable politics. There was a flip side. He was all peace and love, but he was a very violent character.

My first instinct when I write songs is not a negative one. It's something positive... Everything I've ever done has some form of hope in it, I think.

Great music is in the ear of the beholder.

You'll find people who rib you about their age are petrified about getting old. It doesn't bother me.

You can't put a load of rockstars up on a stage and expect to wipe out global poverty. That's ludicrous.

It's not about being upset about the things you might have said or done yesterday, which is quite appropriate at the moment. It's about looking forward rather than looking back. I hate people who look back on the past or talk about what might have been.

Do you ever look at the sky and think, I'm glad I'm alive? After I heard System of a Down, I thought, I'm actually alive to hear the shittiest band of all time. Which is quite something when you think about it. Of all the bands that have gone before and all the bands that'll be in the future, I was around when the worst was around.