My career is a burden, but I can't just fade out like a pathetic sore loser. More often than not, I'm just making a fool of myself for the hundredth time, and that wasn't part of the plan, initially. I'd be happier not having any kind of public presence whatsoever and just hiding behind the sleeves of the CD.

I'm not just going to go back to my bedroom, get a job and 'get real with myself' - come on. I'm already too old, and I'm lucky to have a job at all.

In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me, and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out.

Maybe by making people feel uncomfortable, I tap into that uncanny quality that is a part of the scariest, weirdest things that you remember happening to you when you were a kid.

Philistines' was so beautiful, and it bored me to death. I never want to see another production where the rain splashes against a window and actors wander around in drab cardigans saying, 'I'm so bored.'

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

I'm quite British in the sense of not expressing my emotions much. I save it for my songs. If you ask about a death in the family, or a lover, I will not be emotional. I'd probably answer with a smile. Because that's what we British blokes do.

All you have to do is hold your first soldier who is dying in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that I can't do anything about it... Then you understand the horror of war.