Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We wrote 'Stellify' for Rihanna, but as we got to the end of writing it, I thought, 'You know what? I'm gonna keep this for myself. We'll give her another one.' She'd have probably sung it better, but it is too good for me not to do it.
If I was in the gutter, and my kids lived on the kerb, I'd go and get a job in B&Q before I'd reform the Roses. I gave everything I had to the Stone Roses and ended up hitting a brick wall. I'm never going to give anyone a foothold on that wall again.
I wrote a lot of lyrics in prison, but they'd all be like, 'Crawls upon the shoulders, hatred in the eyes.' I wrote about 50 songs in there that were all about jail. I've come out and thought, 'I've only served eight weeks; I can't really write a concept album about jail.'
There's a lot of good rappers in England at the moment. There's a lot of good dance acts. A lot of good, young guitar acts. I think a lot of groups came from that dole culture of the late 80's/early 90's - it's not as easy now. I think there's a dearth of working class bands.
It is a fact that everyone's got a limited run in music - but who's to say how long that run lasts? I used to think that there would be no way I'd still be in music when I was 40. I used to think anyone who was 40 was an old man, and they probably shouldn't be doing it anymore.
When I was 9, I was into T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and Alice Cooper. I knew The Beatles because my nan introduced me to them, but T. Rex was the first band I got into myself. I got 'Metal Guru' a few months after hearing 'Children of the Revolution' in Pwllheli in North Wales at a market.
I was skint, and I had to move back to my mum and dad's house, back into the room I shared with my brother when I was a kid. I kept getting people on the streets telling me that they loved me; it didn't mean anything to me because I was still borrowing tenners off my pensioner father to go and get some chicken.
Since we were kids, we grow up believing that astronauts are heroes - that to go up in a rocket is a heroic thing. These guys are bigger than movie stars. To me, it's... all a well-dressed-up lie, basically. There's billions spent on rockets up there, and there's millions starving down here. It don't make sense to me.
I think we're great. I think we've still got it. And I think we've got something to give to people. And I think in times like this we can uplift people. We're doing it for ourselves, I'm not gonna lie. We wanted to announce our reunion the day after the riots, but it was important to play together before we announced it.
I gave it up three weeks before my black belt, foolishly. I got to my third brown belt and must have trained for 18 months but never went for it. I was nearly 18 and got this thing in my head about, ' Who are they to grade me?' Trying to be a rebel when I should have done it. It's my only regret, not going for a black belt.
I went to a friend's 40th in Manchester, and there was a karaoke machine, and no one was having a go. My mate said, 'No one's singing because you're in the room.' I said, 'Who am I, Frank Sinatra?' They made me sing flipping 'My Star' to a backing track that sounded like '80s Roxy Music. It was pretty embarrassing, but I did it.