I'm not afraid of just cranking it out and seeing what comes out of my subconscious. Because I don't always know what I'm feeling. I do a lot of rewriting later. But that first blast feels like a spigot - like it's coming from somewhere else.

New York was the Promised Land growing up. Writers were gods! The great gods of American culture... I thought.

Sometimes I feel that my job on earth is to put Julie White through horrible things, watch her writhe and then recover.

Honestly, the thing that I have found to be most useful over a long career, or maintaining a long career, is taking back the power at some point and self-producing.

I was training to be a lawyer... I was president of the law society at Glasgow University, and my bass guitarist was my secretary of my law society; the lead guitarist and writer worked at the law firm that I worked.

In this age when people expect to get their music for free, we have to work out how we can protect the rights of creative artists so they are compensated fairly and that the record business itself remains sound and healthy.

To me, Def Jam put my career on hold. I was used to making 13-14 songs a year, and they trickled that down to nothing.

The whole object of the players' association is to try and make sure that any individual is able to capitalise on his ability, particularly in football, which is a very short career.