Sometimes you definitely need to just let go. You need to sort of forget everything.

It would be a horrible business, a horrible sort of culture if you didn't have the candy pop as well as the real hard-hitting stuff. And I love some pop music.

One of the joys of writing music is making your own mark. Study other stuff, immerse yourself in music and then tell your own truth.

I would say Tony Blair is very much a lapdog. I'm terribly scared that when he finally goes - and we can only hope it's soon - that he will be remembered for all these terrible things that he's done. Which is kind of a scary thing for a Labor Prime Minister.

My generation in the UK, they're very apathetic, a lot of them.

I would always consider myself to be political with a small "p," although it makes me mad when people say politics should be kept out of music.

Music is politics - it always has been and it always will be.