It's very hard to predict what people are thinking.

When Depeche Mode put out a single you knew that a week later you could go and buy the 12" and it would have six versions and they were all better.

Your reputation is what influences people to think, feel and talk about you the way they do.

To me, an untrained ear, a young person at the time, I would hear off the different feels, all these different sounds, and then years later realize that everyone had used the same equipment, just to their own ends.

There's not much room for deviation, yet if you manage to crack it, there then you can express things that actually do sound unique and genuinely original.

I get nostalgic for things that didn't really exist. I might have a cassette from the first time a Melle Mel track, say, got played on radio in Manchester. And it might be a copy of a copy of a copy of a tape and there's all these weird nuances and distortions that have affected what I know as the truth, if you like, of that track.

Let's face it, we're all clones nowadays. We've all got the same archives, we've all got the same Hyundai, we've all got the same Mac or PC components, and we're all being told the same news stories globally.