[on Gary Glitter] One of the greatest characters ever in the rock and roll business and there ain't many of them about these days.

We never went to live abroad and under the 70s Labour government we were paying 83 per cent tax, which was really cruel and totally unfair. We paid our dues, not smilingly though, I must admit and I think we'll have paid for a lot more than a Harrier jump jet - maybe the Ark Royal!

A lot of the music scene now is controlled by TV with the big reality shows. Simon Cowell, he'll be the first president of the world, won't he? He's learned how to use television to a great art form to capture an audience, a massive audience, and there is a marketplace for that and there's a marketplace for the sort of acts that go on those shows. But I wonder where the new young bands are going to break through because live venues, a lot of them are closing down now and bands need to hone their craft. They need to be on the road and work and improve and improve their song writing and everything. You can't just take that vehicle through television or through the Internet. You have to go out and gig in those places, year after year, and those places are disappearing. So it's a struggle for new bands, especially when the reality shows are capturing big chunks of the chart places. And record companies can't afford to plough money into bands like they used to, because CD sales are dropping, the record companies haven't got the money to. Like when we signed our first deal, it was a five year deal and it meant five years, we were guaranteed five albums. Now a band signs, if the first album's not a success or the second, they get dropped and they have no chance to develop or break through. (Speaking in 2009)