By the time I was 19, punk had occurred. It had a completely different cultural dynamic to it which rejected everything and started again from the year zero.

An isolationist America is no bloody use to anyone.

I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren't very political, at all.

So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.

I'm still batting away on my politics for the Labour Party. I'm much further to the left of them than I used to be, but that's because they've moved, not me.

But, in the end, even a song that's as politically bland as Blowin in the Wind, you probably wouldn't get up and sing that now, whereas some of Bob Dylan's love songs that were contemporary with that, like say Girl from the North Country, you can still get up an play now.

It's not a very popular subject amongst my audience, who are by nature more internationalist, but I don't choose what to write about, I don't choose my subjects, they kind of choose me.

Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had.

Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.

There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.

All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.

The most important thing for anyone, I think, is to be engaged, whether you're an artist or a journalist is to be engaged in the process at some level.

I'm trying to make a case for those people who don't have a sense of belonging that they should have, that there is something really worthwhile in having a sense of belonging, and recasting and looking at our modern history.

I came into this whole business by going to see Rock Against Racism gigs with the Clash.

That taught me one lesson which is that you're naive to believe that bands can change the world. Bands are very naive to think that just if their audience thinks that they can change the world, that they can. That was quite a lesson for my career, really.

Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it's me who has to come up with all the ideas.

My theory is this; I'm not a political songwriter. I'm an honest songwriter.

I've had songs written during the Falklands war, and during the first Gulf war I got letters from soldiers saying they were listening to these songs, like Island of no return.

In that sense, I became politicized because the people in the coal mining villages who were involved in the struggle knew why they were there. But they couldn't understand why some pop star from London would want to be there.

My upbringing was very straightforward suburban working class upbringing.

All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.

I try and write honestly about what I see around me now.

By the time I was 19, punk had occurred. It had a completely different cultural dynamic to it which rejected everything and started again from the year zero.

We read our own political content into The Clash, and they accepted it.

Most of the people that I went to school with - I went to secondary school - we were educated to go and work in the line at Ford's, and if we were lucky, technical skilled labor. I sort of rejected that, and thought I wanted to do something else.

When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.

I can play punk rock, and I love playing punk rock, but I was into every other style of music before I played punk rock.

Punk rock really came out of N.Y. as a philosophy before the groups were ever recorded. I had a kind-of intellectual interest in the idea of creating a new scene that could be a grassroots thing.

And I used to go the punk clubs such as a gay club in Poland Street that everyone would go to because it was the only place you could go to looking like that without getting beaten senseless.

Mozart was a punk, which people seem to forget. He was a naughty, naughty boy.

A punk concert isn't fun without a pit.

The first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political.

When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, Thank God, something got their attention.

But there's actually a lot of punk bands out there that go out of the norm, use odd time signatures, or a lot of different tempo changes in a song.

The funniest thing happened in one of my first scenes. In the beginning Emma was really arrogant and punk and in every scene she would slam the door when she walked in or out.

There are several books out on punk history, but I haven't read any of them. I was there.

The period right before punk rock where people like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop were really strong.

I got tired of the Ramones around the time I quit and I really got into rap. I thought it was the new punk rock. LL Cool J was my biggest idol.

The iconoclastic mode, that specific mode of language, there is an element of it that it is punk - that is confrontational. That's just a part of the language of jazz - at a certain point.

I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren't very political, at all.

I didn't know who was on the team, but I saw every eye as I walked down the aisle. It looked like a thousand eyes were staring right at me saying, 'Who is this young punk?' I just kept my eyes straight ahead.

My dad took me to all the best rock and punk shows when I was growing up and music has always been a part of my life. So I'm very interested in the music scene and I suppose that's why I've ended up going out with musicians. Dave Pirner is still one of my best friends.

The new album is a childhood dream come true. Got to sing with Ronnie Spector, got to cover a bunch of songs that were influential in drawing a line between the punk form and original rock and roll.

Punk is not dead. Punk will only die when corporations can exploit and mass produce it.

Absolute 80's is three hours of mainstream 80's music. I also do New Wave Nation that is more cutting edge. It is more punk stuff from the 70's to the 90's.

There is a great deal of cyberpunk that I admire, especially the work of William Gibson which I think is excellent. Somehow he speaks from his own heart and cyber punk is what comes out.

Teachers didn't like me very much. They thought I was just this punk kid and they always wanted to kick me out.

I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle.