When there are no women on the tour it can get awful and ugly – constant horrible jokes and gross behaviour. It needs to be leavened with a feminine presence.

For me, it’s all about The Dubliners by James Joyce. I love The Dead.

Even the bands I dig don’t have a history of attaining mass consumption.

I have to make rock records occasionally.

See, to me, rock’n’roll doesn’t have any point. It’s just fun. It has a million different angles and they’re all valid. But I think rock might be a world issue.

You know more about me than I do about myself, that’s probably true.

The best songs I write in 20 minutes.

But ya have to make videos in the States. Usually ours just look too serious. We haven’t got it together.

It’s better when you have your wife with you, more fun.

I lie around and play guitar, that’s something I do for sure. In fact that’s all I do, I think.

Rock stars wanting to write is even worse than wanting to act in movies, right?

I used to have a sort of spiky haircut and it just feels better to have short hair again.

I don’t like alcohol, but I still like to mess around with other stuff occasionally. I think it’s important I take mushrooms and acid. They’re certainly not addictive, so I can’t rule that out.

It is hard, though, ‘cos record labels love to boss you around. I won’t let them do that anymore.

Since Elizabeth, I certainly live a healthier lifestyle.

Basically, between 1989 and 1994, I hadn’t taken a vacation.

My high-school dream was to be in a band, pay my rent and eat – and I’ve been able to do that for 20 years. So I’m completely content.

But Sneaky Pete was great. I didn’t bug him about Gram. Not too much, anyway.

I’d forgotten what it was like to play music and have it be fun so I decided to stop. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make a new record, I was just kinda quitting.

When I was 14 years old, I was a huge fan of the Velvets, the Stooges and the Modern Lovers. They are my three favourite bands. I never get sick of ’em.

When there are no women on the tour it can get awful and ugly – constant horrible jokes and gross behaviour. It needs to be leavened with a feminine presence.

CDs, too. Totally corporate. They look real cheap and soulless and they don’t smell of anything.

When I write a song, it’s all about the riff – the riff first, then the words come later.

I don’t write down my experiences, but I have a very decent memory. I have tons of books in which I write down phrases as they occur to me. That’s how I write songs. I’ll need a line and I’ll go through the books and find it, the right rhyme and everything.

I was hanging out with Jonathan Richman last night.

I guess I’m about ready to promote myself in a more human way. I don’t feel quite so insecure.

I’ve got time, I hope, to make lots of quiet records. So quiet you won’t be able to hear them.

I need the money. People don’t understand how little money you make in a band.

Some of our stuff ends up looking too corporate. I’m going to be a lot stricter from now on.

I was trying to spend it as quickly as possible. Because I’m so lazy, all that money created a block. I was flying around the world, staying at fancy hotels, having fun and trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible, so I could get on with some more work.