Alex Kapranos

No matter what you do, if you're trying to create something new, your environment has a massive impact on you.

Although they might not admit it, I think girls are very aware of the impact that they're having. But they never feel it themselves, and it's impossible to explain. It's like trying to tell a blind person what yellow is.

I really want it to have an impact on the world. I want to be in a town on the other side of the world, and somebody walks up and says, 'That music you made in Glasgow, I listened to it every day, and it moved me.'

Ambition is sneered at by some bands. It seems like a pretty good thing to me.

A lot of food criticism has a similar flavor to it, and I'm probably going to write about it in a different way.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

Arty. To me the word's got as much venom associated with it as 'wacky'.

Boredom or being sick of what you've done before is a big part of being in a band.

Of course, there's a certain type of person who feels that anything which becomes mainstream has to be rejected immediately. And that's part of the indie-alternative snobbery and hierarchy and elitism.

A lot of bands have the enthusiasm kicked out of them by playing really dreary pub venues that just churn bands through.

If success had come along when I was 17 it would either have killed me or sent me completely mad.

Being in a band didn't buy me my beans on toast!