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

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

If you're a Brit you kinda get used to people being cold and aloof and just generally arrogant - particularly musicians. (Compared to Londoners New Yorkers are a walk in the park!)

Bob Dylan had been a big sort of presence in my life but I'd never quite registered what he was trying to tell me. He was always this kind of figure, a sort of bear-like figure in the corner of the room. You know, every time I imagined what Bob Dylan looked like, he looked a bit like Steve Earl used to look - with the beard.

I want to be accessible to a certain type of person who wants to walk around with their eyes open, or at least is open to the idea of change.

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.

I think the US and the UK are gradually growing closer together in a lot of ways. They're inextricably linked.