Even though we were influenced by American culture and music, we like the rest of Europe have been colonized with that in the post-war period. At the same time there's a sense of dirty earthiness and Europeanness and Britishness in it as well.

We were coming from a completely different place, which was saying "sound" is what you want to define it as, and you can shape it into music in whichever way you want.

Going there [Japan] in the early 80s was quite a culture shock. I think the bombardment of Shinjuku and all that would have filtered through, which certainly informed things we later filmed.

Crackdown had Dave Ball playing on it. Flood worked on our next album, and Adrian Sherwood worked with us on Code.

I think underneath it all [in the Big Funk] was a little bit of a Europeanness in it.

You don't have to be trained in music to create sounds and to produce and release music. That's what we were saying back in 73-74. And that's the way the world is now - and all the tools of creation, production and dissemination are there in everybody's bedrooms, front rooms and studios.

If you're going to change things, one of the things we had to change is to get away from that traditional model of rock music, and we were a part of that.