My mother was always emotionally supportive, through the early days of bands and things. My father was a musician as well, so he tended to be coming at it from a different angle. He bought me my first guitars, including the Gibson I used with Be-Bop Deluxe, and still have. So he was tremendously supportive. He was a working class guy and the Gibson in particular was a lot of money in those days.

When the psychedelic era came along, prior to Be-Bop in the mid sixties, I was really into people like Hendrix and Beck, Townshend and Clapton. They were the four guitar people that I listened to the most, although there was a lot of jazz people on the side I was listening to as well. He saw that kind of music as being sort of bizarre and said I’d never get anywhere with that sort of music, writing my own songs etc. He thought I should be doing standards and things people could sing along to. So for a while in the early days of Be-Bop he was hyper critical about everything I did. Then there’s this story that I've told many times.

We did a half hour TV special on the BBC with Be-Bop Deluxe playing in a studio, live. I went round to my mother and father’s house when it was broadcast to watch it with them, and I was really nervous about watching it with my dad. I thought he was just going to be picking holes in it all the way through. When the programme finished he was really quiet, then he said, "I take it all back, I don’t know where that all comes from, but I think it is incredible". That was everything that I wanted to hear from my father, because he knew what he was talking about. He gave me all kinds of advice in the early days, to do with music. A lot of which I didn’t take, because of my youth and my ignorance. But some of it I did take. It was all spot on, generally!

It’s nothing to do with any of that really, although integrity does come into it. There’s no way you can guarantee a pop hit. There are so many things that have to be in place to make a record a hit, most of those things aren’t actually anything to do with music at all. It’s to do with marketing, targeting age groups, media exposure and often, musically, to do with mediocrity. You only have to watch ‘Top Of The Pops’ to see the level of mediocrity that music has sunk to. So it’s not possible, to expect somebody to sit down and guarantee a hit, it doesn’t work that way. Not unless you have a lot of machinery in place to go with it, and a very clear cut point of view of what a popular piece of music should sound like, and I have no idea of what people want to hear. I only know what I want to hear, and it’s not what is on ‘Top Of The Pops’…

I’ve used different approaches at different times. When I was working in my ‘day job’ before Be-Bop Deluxe turned professional; I wrote all the lyrics for ‘Axe Victim’ at my desk at work, or even in the toilet at work! Then I’d go home and get a guitar and try and figure out some kind of melodic thing to go with it. In latter years, it’s been more dealing with the rhythm first and adding things a layer at a time. Using it more like a piece of clay, rather than having too fixed an idea to start with, I just have a couple of starting points, then see where those starting points lead. It’s like having a key to a door, but you’re not quite sure what’s in the room until you get inside. The starting points are the keys, it may be a title for a song or a mood that I want to get across, a subject matter or some little quirky thing I’ve observed. But that starting point is enough until I get into the room and start exploring. There is no hard and fast rule, it could be one of several methods.

That’s a good point I think.

It’s at the same stage as last time I saw you! Now I’ve got my printer, I might be able to try something with the artwork. I’ve been trying a few experiments, putting my hand in the scanner and fiddling around with the different controls.

‘Noise Candy’, I possibly perceive as being commercial, simply because a lot of the tracks are ones which were left off other albums because I thought they were a bit too commercial. ‘Sunflower Dairy Product’ is the most light-hearted ‘Poppy’ song based album. When I recorded them, I thought them too commercial and I didn’t want that to be a major statement at the time. ‘King Frankenstein’ is also possibly quite commercial, it’s a kind of psychedelic ‘heavy’ rock. The psychedelic bit is very important to it, because it’s quite trippy, it’s not ‘AC/DC’ by any means, there’s a lot more going on. But I think it’s commercial in the respect that those people who like the guitar, the more ‘stunt guitar’ side of my music, will go for that perhaps.

I think from it, one really strong album could be distilled. That was both commercial and had integrity. But I’m not the person to do it because I’m so close to it, I’m so sick of hearing it, I just couldn’t tell you what’s good, bad or indifferent. This is why it has taken me so long to get the artwork together. I really want the record out, but it’s such an uphill struggle to get motivated to do it. It seems it belongs to the person that I was when I did it, and I’m about to change and mutate again with the new studio. There’s something new down the line and I don’t know what it is, but I’m more interested in that, than the past. I know I have to discipline myself and sit down and finish it and get it out the way.

I never presume really what people are going to ask. There is that clichéd one about "Why don’t you reform Be-Bop Deluxe?" "Why don’t you play guitar anymore?" Lately it has become "Why don’t you sing anymore?" So I guess they’ve got to be contenders. People really can ask what they want, and I’ll try to answer it the best I can.

Can I give you a million pounds and the key to Greta Scacchi’s room?

What makes anybody buzz? It’s real things, not necessarily things to do with my career or music. Suddenly realising that somebody values me for the person I am, genuine friendship. Creatively, lots of things, you’d have to walk round with your eyes shut not to get a buzz. The world, despite all the complaints and problems that it has today, it’s still an incredible buzz just to be alive. To have all that possibility of input into yourself, then to be able to churn it around in the alchemical furnace and out it comes as music or painting or whatever.

Smile is probably the same as buzz really, something to tickle your fancy if you can see the funny side of it.

Angry? I try to contain anger, it’s a negative thing, but it’s impossible not to be stirred by those things from time to time. The thing that makes me angry the most is unfairness, if I come across people that are very unfair in a conscious and deliberate way, when they really won’t shift on something, they know somebody is going to lose out and it’s not going to be them. That riles me when they can’t see the other person’s point of view, when there’s a compromise to be reached in a human situation – injustice.

It’s a long time since I’ve shed tears, although there were plenty around the time of the divorce and Mark Rye’s case. I think if I ever feel a real deep sadness, it tends to be brought on by some work of art that’s actually touched the real depths of what the human condition is about. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a morbid subject, that milks the sentiments superficially. It would more likely be a movie that has a moment in it that shows the vulnerability and tenderness of ordinary people, in a very small and simple way, and just shines a little lamp on it for a second. It can touch you really deeply, music can do that. I still find it difficult if I go to York Minster and listen to evensong, some pieces in there are so beautiful that my eyes just fill up, sitting and listening to it. It’s not because it’s sad or about death and mortality. I’m just so touched by the fact that human beings, for all their faults and anger, bitterness and fear, are capable of creating such total beauty that sweeps you off your feet. That contradiction, from a creature that can do terrible things to its own kind, can also create something that really moves me.

I’d like to be able to say that I had finally managed to find the funding to go out on the road with a band, and record an album with some excellent musicians. Collaborate with some fine people. Score another movie. Have an exhibition of my visual work somewhere and not be worrying about financial problems.

But, if I had to choose between that, or just to be alive and healthy in five years time. Then being alive and healthy would take first place, because you can have all that other stuff and be living in hell. If I could say to you that I had spent the last five years actually getting to know more about how to live, it would be a great achievement. It would be a bigger achievement than making another dozen records.

Thanks for all the questions, some very good ones in there. Thanks for the patience with ‘Noise Candy’; it will come out eventually. Have a good 2001 and I hope it will bring some musical surprises.