Look, people are allowed their own opinions and they don't always coincide with yours. As an artist you just have to keep plugging on.

There is good and bad in everyone.

I tried heroin just the once. Even then, I didn't realize I'd taken it. I was just handed something, smoked it, then found out what it was. It didn't do anything for me, which was lucky because I wouldn't have fancied heading down that road.

I think the 'Just say no' mentality is so crazed. I saw a thing in a women's magazine the other day. 'He smokes cannabis, what am I to do? He laughs it off when I try to tell him, he says it's not really harmful...' Of course you're half hoping the advice will be, 'Well, you know it's not that harmful; if you love him, if you talk to him about it, tell him maybe he should keep it in the garden shed or something,' you know, a reasonable point of view. But of course it was, 'No, no, all drugs are bad. Librium's good, Valium's good. But cannabis, ooooh!' I hate that unreasoned attitude.

I hate the idea of success robbing you of your private life.

You see, my mother was a district nurse until she died when I was 14, and we used to move from time to time because of her work.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.