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I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.

I listened a little to punk when I was younger, but it was straight edge punk. It was nothing like what is going on now, like poppy punk.

After the Ramones, it was more about new wave for me than punk.

I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk.

I was a punk when I was 15 - I was definitely into it in a big way and loved it - but I came to London when punk was maybe where you'd say punk is dead.

Punk rock really came out of N.Y. as a philosophy before the groups were ever recorded. I had a kind-of intellectual interest in the idea of creating a new scene that could be a grassroots thing.

The period right before punk rock where people like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop were really strong.

When I was in college in Philly, there was a lot of post-punks... hardcore... like, rock. Sixties, retro, proto-Strokes kind of bands.

The New York Dolls did not think of themselves as punk rock. There was no such term at the time. They were just another band in what was called the New York scene.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.