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In the early days, myself and my friends were into punk because we had no money, just very basic instruments and skills. It was more about the ethos and the energy.

The thing about punk is that there are purists. Once you start going outside of that, they don't think what you're doing is punk rock.

When someone asks you, 'What's punk?' my reply is, 'If you have to ask, you're never going to know.'

Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together.

To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am'.

Starting out really punk came from not knowing any better and listening to music like that, not knowing how to play music - well, still not knowing how to play music.

I always said punk was an attitude. It was never about having a Mohican haircut or wearing a ripped T-shirt. It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that.

I think one of the most important things punk brought back was the whole concept of staying independent and doing things yourself. It made music a lot less boring in any category you can name.

Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality.

When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial.