If you’re into a certain band, you’re into the way they dress.
I’m definitely obsessed about artists and the type of music and the playing and the tone and all that kind of thing – I’m not obsessed about what the best Beatles album is. I just think if The Beatles are great, they’re great.
I don’t really wanna talk about politics, I’m not clever enough.
Life is a drink and you get drunk when you’re young.
I had a total belief in The Style Council. I meant every word and felt every action.
I suppose I was much more serious-minded in the ’70s and ’80s.
I could write songs about politics, but I’m conscious of not writing songs that sound the same as the ones I wrote 30 years ago.
I’m very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music.
I’ve not had Botox, no.
In my old age, my mind gets more open, and I listen to so many different types of music and I guess that all reflects in my work.
It is nice to make a record and people like it, and it’s encouraging.
There are so many artists who get to my age that get comfortable and just stick in a groove, and I really don’t want to do that.
When I’m dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do.
The Zombies were really unique – they had elements of jazz and classical music in their songs and songwriting. They had a very, very different sound compared to a lot of their contemporaries at the time.
When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I’d write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I’d sit there writing songs with my guitar.
Coming from a little suburban town, I wasn’t a hip city kid. I was quite the opposite, really. Songs like ‘Saturday’s Kids’ rang a bell for kids all over the country. That song was about the kids I grew up with.
I think part of what we do is there is a bit of dandy influence, always, or a little sprinkle of it. Not literal Savile Row dandy, but there’s a bit of sartorial dandiness in everything that we do – every collection that we do.
I really enjoy playing America. I like the audiences there. It’s the home of a lot of music I grew up with.
When I listen to a record, or when I’m making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble.
Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later and it means something to us, and it always will do. It’s incredibly important.