Irony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest.

In all relationships, there are always aching holes and that's where the impossible wishes come into it.

I would be more familiar with Janet Jackson than I was with the Teardrop Explodes or Joy Division, because I didn't want to listen to my competitors for fear of nicking ideas off them.

I have never liked Morrissey, and I still don't. I think it's hilarious, actually, what things I've heard about him, what he's really like, and his public persona is so different. He's such an actor.

The very first concert I ever went to on my own was actually Rory Gallagher. In a one-month period in 1973 or '74, I saw him, Thin Lizzy and the Rolling Stones. I wasn't really a big Rory Gallagher fan, but I thought his guitar playing was fabulous. But Thin Lizzy, they were fabulous.

I do a job I really, really love and I kind of have fun with. People think you can't be grown up unless you're moaning about your job.

I still frequent my parents' house. I go there to escape, back to the bedroom that I grew up in. Just to sit there and feel small.