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The Jam went through a phase of wearing satin jackets. But that was pre-getting signed and making it, when we were still playing the pubs and clubs - around '75. Shocking, really - what would you call them apart from 'horrible?' We'd wear these white zip-up bomber jackets with black kind of loon pants and black and white shoes.
If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise, you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.
I think if you're a creative person, then you're always kinda looking to move things along - 'Where else can I go? Where can I take this?' From painters to photographers - anything creative in the arts - if you're a true artist, I think you'll always look to do something else. 'Where else can I go with it?' Do you know what I mean?
I think, with age, you learn that it comes in bursts and you've got no control over it. I'm not one of those people who says, 'I've got to write a song every day.' I just store up ideas, and really I have to wait until it finds me; I know when I'm ready to write. It used to frustrate me, but it doesn't any more. It's just how it is.
Right from the start with music, I was like, 'I'm just going to do this, and I don't care about anything else. There are certain things you have to give up, even at 13, 14: your Friday and Saturday nights, having a regular girl, lots of things like that. I look at Amy Winehouse, and I think perhaps she just don't want to do it that much.
For me, my entry point, when I was old enough, was the skinhead/suedehead thing, sort of like '70/'71. People didn't have much money - they would save up, or whatever - but everyone always dressed up. You'd go to a dance at the football club on a Thursday night and all of us kids - all of us from maybe like 12 to 16 - were all dressed up.
There was a time in my 40s where I thought, oh, it's all over - not just work, but I'm never going to feel young again, I'm always going to feel like I know what's going to happen, I'll know what to expect. Looking back I don't know if that was a midlife crisis, I don't know - but I don't feel that now. There's possibilities. It gets better.
When I was a kid in Woking, every week you went to the football dance, and every week the top kids would be wearing something different. You were constantly trying to catch up with them - which you could never do because, by the time you'd saved up enough to buy the item, they'd moved on to something else. That's the whole Mod thing, I suppose.
When recording, whatever you first think about, you come out with something totally different at the end of it. Whatever plans you have you throw away, because it's always going to end up sounding pretty different from what you initially thought of. I probably only had about five or six songs when I started, and it just sort of flowed from that.
Worldwide, most people dress more casually these days, don't they? They have done for the last 20 or 30 years, I suppose. So, every place that I go to, the majority of people really wear jeans, trainers, T-shirt - everybody seems to dress more for comfort. Whereas, even in my lifetime, even up to the early-'70s, there was still that thing of dressing up.
Young people can listen to music at any moment in the day or night. Which is great, but I think it kind of devalues it as well. They don't feel the need to own it. They certainly don't feel the need to pay for it. I'd have to save up for weeks to buy an album when I was a kid, and that made it even more great for me when I finally got that thing in my hand.
For me, there's always an early-'70s sense. There's always a sprinkle of it - if I do it exactly like that, sometimes it becomes too costume-y or too thought out. But the influences are there, without a doubt, always, because to me, that was the part that I also felt was the most defining of my own personality and my own style, and I also think that it's timeless. You never look wrong.
There's always peripheral things that you like that you don't know, but starting with whatever his British influences are, are some of my favourite artists, and the American things are what I grew up on as well. In the end, for me, it's those foundations of the music business - those things that are a lot of the foundations of what music today is. You can hear a bit of all of those things that we talk about in almost all music today.
When I discovered blues - I was 12-years-old - I didn't discover it in America where it was from; I discovered it from Fleetwood Mac - the original Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, Saveloy Brown - like British blues interpretations of it,' which then, when I started the liner notes and seeing all these names, I was like, 'Who's Willie Dixon?' Then I go to the record store and ask the guy there and he goes, 'Oh, you don't know anything.' And so, to me, that's the root of most of it anyway.
I was always taught as a kid that if there's anything you want in life, you've got to work towards it. I guess that sort of stayed with me, really. But also, for me, from the time I was like 10 years old, all I ever wanted to do was be in a band and make music. So to get the chance to do that, to live your dreams or wishes, I just seize it and try and run with it. I never sort of think, oh, the pressure, or it's too much. You're lucky to be doing it. It's a great gift to have, and I appreciate it.
I'd like to think that what I've written over the years and what I'm doing now means something to people. People in the street all the time are saying "love the new record" or "I love that record," this tune or that tune. It means an awful lot, or it's been a big part of their lives. As a songwriter, what else would you really want? You're trying to connect with people, people's emotions, and maybe say something about their lives or feelings. That's probably a good enough compliment to receive, really.
I think you have to satisfy yourself first and foremost. There have been records I've been really, really pleased with that haven't connected with people. But I felt good about them. If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.
Music's totally eclectic now. I saw a DJ the other day, he was on Virgin radio over here, and he said he played "Going Underground", the Jam song, on his breakfast show. Then he got a text from some young kid asking if was a new band. I think a lot of people these days, younger people as well, are aware of all sorts of music, really. If you're into the Libertines you probably also have to be aware of the Beatles, or the Kinks. I think there's a better, possibly greater appreciation for all music, of all eras, I think.
If you're in music, you're in music, and if you're in music you just want to keep making records and playing. That's what it's about, isn't it? At least, that's what I always thought it was about, anyway. I don't think I could bear years and years off. Perhaps in me older, older age, maybe I will, for physical reasons. But to me you've always got to keep proving yourself. I never want to just sit on me laurels. You have to keep forging, to prove yourself to yourself. I always think, every time I start a record, this could be the best thing I've ever done.