I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I'm going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I'm going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

Nearly all the synth work on Heathen is mine and some of the piano.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods presence in his life. He is the 21st century man.

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.

I'm always amazed that peole take what I say seriously. I don't even take what I am seriously.

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.

But I'm pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.

I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.

I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody's talents.

To not be modest about it, you'll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I've worked with have done their best work by far with me.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I'm not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me.

Tony Visconti and I had been wanting to work together again for a few years now. Both of us had fairly large commitments and for a long time we couldn't see a space in which we could get anything together.

However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.

But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him.

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I've seen on some of the songs that I've written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.

Strangely, some songs you really don't want to write.

I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized that to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.

I've never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.

I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.

I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

Age doesn't bother me. So many of my heroes were older guys. It's the lack of years left that weighs far heavier on me than the age that I am.

All Montreal bands have around nine members, I believe.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

An armchair Jungian would say the whole thing is about my own ongoing spiritual search. My interior life has always been one of trying to find a spiritual link, maybe because I'm from a family of separate religious philosophies: Protestant and Catholic.

Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.

Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn't really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn't have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left?

Being a hybrid maker off and on over the years, I'm very comfortable with the idea and have been the subject of quite a few pretty good mash-ups myself.

Being shoved into the top-40 scene was an unusual experience. It was great I'd become accessible to a huge audience but not terribly fulfilling.

Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.

Dance music is no longer a simple Donna Summer beat. It's become a whole language that I find fascinating and exciting. Eventually, it will lose the dance tag and join the fore of rock.

Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.