Joe Strummer

We sing in English, not mimicking some American rock singer's accent. That's just pretending to be something you ain't.

I began thinking there should be an American phrase book, 'cause I've got an Italian phrase book, and an Arabic one... now a British one. I think it'd be pretty good to have an American phrase book.

All hippies around now just represent complete apathy.

I found that I was just hopeless at school. It was just a total bore. First, I passed in art and English, and then just art. Then I passed out.

To me, our music is like Jamaican stuff - if they can't hear it, they're not supposed to hear it. It's not for them if they can't understand it.

The only place I considered home was the boarding school in Yorkshire my parents sent me to. It's easier, isn't it? I mean, it gets kids out the way, doesn't it?

I only saw my father twice a year. If I'd seen him all the time I'd probably have murdered him by now. He was very strict.

When we played Paris, the English punks would come over, and they got to know the French punks. There was some nice scenes in the back alleys.

Anyway, it's good to be sent back to the underground. There's always a good side to bad things and the good side to this is that at least everyone has to go back down.

I get on all right with my parents. But I don't see them very much. They split up when I was eight. I stayed with my mum, but I felt it was a bit soft with her. I could do whatever I liked, and I wasn't getting nowhere, so I went to stay with my dad.

What I like about playing America is you can be pretty sure you're not going to get hit with a full can of beer when you're singing and I really enjoy that!

When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there.

I think we're going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth.

If you ain't thinkin' about man and God and law, then you ain't thinkin' about nothin'.

We did eight gigs in super-stadiums, all the biggest joints - L.A. Coliseum, Oakland Coliseum, Shea Stadium.

The hippy movement was a failure. All hippies around now just represent complete apathy. There's a million good reasons why the thing failed, OK. But the only thing we've got to live with is that it failed.

I don't want to look back. I want to keep going forward, I still have something to say to people.

There is a time to dance to techno and a time not to.

I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't.

The only place I considered home was the boarding school, in Yorkshire, my parents sent me to.

Yeah, all those things, responsibility, pressure. It's a bit stressful. I try and come to terms with it by not thinking about it.

The hippy movement was a failure.

I'm proud of all our records. Even the crap ones.

With The Simpsons you can go back to work with a keen heart.