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There's a focus that hasn't been there for ages and ages and some American bands are sounding quite English like they did in the late 70s and early 80s.

I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they're English or American, from Manchester or London... or Leeds or Welsh or Irish.

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

A lot of people think that because I'm from Malaysia, I'm driven by Malaysian sound, but actually, it's mostly just my melodies.

Well, obviously I wanted it to sound as original as possible. I suppose the influences that we had were probably from the actual power point of view we wanted to be like the Who. Vocally we wanted to be like the Beach Boys, whatever was good at the time.

If someone says 'grunge' or 'punk,' you know what the sound is, but if you say 'No Wave,' it's kind of mysterious. That was the most interesting part and should have been the most inspirational thing about it... here's this collective sonic insanity, and none of it sounds anything alike.

After a foreign invasion, there has to be a sort of feeling of musical inadequacy in the country.

I've had songs written during the Falklands war, and during the first Gulf war I got letters from soldiers saying they were listening to these songs, like Island of no return.

You know, Rolling Stones songs all sound kind of the same.

A country that has been through as much as Vietnam has to have some crazy music somewhere.