Guitarists From England

"Q: What if you're having a rough day and something has upset you, how do you go out? How do you overcome that?"

"You can sometimes get your own feelings across more strongly if you pretend that you're singing it from someone else's angle. But it's always from me. It's just a new way of framing it. source"

"The closest I got was in 1997. I was on a train; I’d just been to Devon to get braces fitted. I felt so self-conscious, I was like: ‘Shit, what am I going to do? I’m 19 and I’ve got braces.’ Then the train stopped at Castle Cary, and everybody from Glastonbury got on. And I just melted in the corner. [laughs] Did they all seem cool? They seemed so cool! I was just like: ‘Shit, how do you get that cool?’ So that was my closest experience to Glastonbury; being on a train and feeling like the nerdiest of nerds, because my mum had told me to get my wonky teeth fixed."

"It's weird that whatever else is on your mind, whether it's the downfall of global economics or terrible environmental troubles, the thing that always gets you most is when you fancy someone. source"

"It’s hard to perfect a happy song. Pharrell managed it. Stevie Wonder managed it. Bill Withers managed it. I haven’t managed it yet."

"I come from a farming community in the west of England, where the very idea of going to America was a golden dream. There’s still a part of me every morning can’t believe that we are allowed to be there. There is always a sense of possibility. Of course it has its challenges and its ups and downs, but there is always an optimism that I find exciting. Maybe it’s because the sun shines in LA every day and you are surrounded by lots of other creative people, but I feel a great sense of, ‘OK, what can we make?’ And it’s nice to be by the seaside. I feel very grateful. source"

"Q: Are you worried that if you start living it up you'll stop writing good songs?"

"It was so terrifying, the plane was all over the place. Once a year, for a week, all this dust blows over from the Sahara Desert, you could not see a thing, I couldn't see the ground and as it turns out, nor could the pilot. I found out we were about 200 metres up. The plane dropped off violently to the right then way over to the left, it was lurching all over. But somehow the pilot pulled it off and landed. I don't know how he did it, I was convinced he wasn't going to. Did the pilot know Chris Martin was on board? I don't think he gave a flying f**k. My mind was racing and I thought, 'My daughter will have to get a stepdad.' I also thought, "I've written a will. The band have finished the album but they know how I want to finish certain songs.""

"What keeps me going is that I could die tomorrow so I’m always trying to live every day. source"

"My mum always said to me she doesn't believe in sleeping with people before marriage. She's not being prissy. She's very rock 'n' roll--it means doing what you feel and damn everyone else--and she reckons waiting and committing leads to great sex. I didn't agree entirely, but I haven't slept with many people. I didn't lose my virginity until two years ago. If I was good with women I'd go and enjoy it. But also I'm obsessed with the band, so I refuse to commit to a relationship... I'm an ambitious little tosser."

"We did a song for Johnny Cash, we recorded it with Rick Rubin and everything and all that was missing was his vocals. He was going to fly out to LA the week after he died. It’s really sad. 2003 source source"

"I think girls are amazing but I also feel really guilty about doing stuff with someone that you don't really like. I don't believe there is such a thing as casual sex. Someone always gets hurt and I hate that feeling. One thing about girls is that I get scared. I get scared of my feelings being in the hands of another person, I know that feeling of waiting for a girl to call. That's scary."

"I know I'm going to get shit for saying this, but yeah, I don't want to be too happy. To write I have to feel slightly sorry for myself. You have to be in a slightly self-obsessed state of mind to sit at a piano for six hours and not worry about meeting someone for a date. My best songs come when I have that feeling that I've left the party early. And the other reason our songs are all about struggling and worrying and being beleaguered is my dad. He's a terrible worrier. He's always after the next thing. And I am too. Luckily the other members are more relaxed. Three other members like me and we'd go nuts."

"“I always ring my dad when I want to quit, and he goes, [in a plummy voice] ‘Well I wouldn’t give up yet, boy.’ So I think, ‘All right then. I won’t.’ He’d be a brilliant boxing trainer. He sprays me down, rinses out my mouth and tells me to get back in the ring and sock that (Alan) McGee fella for six.” source"

"I think when you're as talented as me or you, you don't need to have an ego. On a serious note, the people I most admire in the world in my field have never shown that much ego to me. source"

"What's good about the way we write songs is that I never quite know what I'm doing cause I can't read music. source"

"Q: And you decided to be a rock star, when?"

"Up until 23, the concept of death hadn't occurred to me, then someone asked me if I'd heard about Jonty, this friend from school. I said, "No, what?" "He's dead." I used to play football with him. That's amazing, isn't it? Life is right now. It's not a morbid realisation, it's exciting, I find that feeling of time constraint very liberating. Nobody has an answer. We all die in the end. So come on, let's do something now. source"

"Q: Everyone picks up a certain emotional vulnerability in your music."

"Radiohead gave me hope. They were the band who gave me permission. I'm a public schoolboy from Devon and I'm not supposed to be in a band. Well, they proved I could. I thought, I'm a bit like them. Jonny was OK because he's northern and so is Guy."

"The word 'campaigning' makes me uncomfortable. At the time I was writing things on my hand, we were definitely campaigning (Make Trade Fair). Now we do it more subtly. You can see who we support at a concert or on our website, but we don't like to shove it down people's throats. I want to scale it back. I'd rather it's like, if you want to know what we think, then you can find it, rather than, 'Here's what I think!'. source"

"I definitely believe in God. How can you look at anything and not be over-whelmed by the miraculousness of it?"

"I do a lot of apologising but deep down I'm a very confident man. I'm confident in the fact that I make a lot of mistakes. source"

"Why do we write music, what does inspires us? Well, in the beginning it was just having instruments around and just loving music and bands and all that but then recently it just seems to me to be a point of existence, you know? I can't work at anything else in the world except at how to write songs and I think we all (the band) just escape into it, you know what I mean? source"

"Life is miraculous. Even when it's disastrous, it's still incredible."

"To know where you come from makes where you are even more special."

"Not cool. Ever. I’ve never been cool and I don’t really care about being cool. It’s just an awful lot of time and hair gel wasted. At school I was a medium-clever geek. If you’re at public school (Sherbourne) and you’re not that good at rugby, you spend quite a few important years of your life feeling like a real loser. We’ve never been about cool. What’s happened to us is more about showing that the geeks at school can get there in the end. And you have to stay true to who you are, the root of all this is to do with our friendship. source"

"They'd all left for America — they were short-term lets — so they'd always leave food and, cos we didn't have much money, we would eat the rest of their cornflakes and listen to Ricky (Gervais) on XFM. source source"

"For many years, Yusuf Islam has been pretending he didn’t say the things he said in 1989, when he enthusiastically supported the Iranian terrorist edict against me and others. However, his words are on the record, in print interviews and on television programs.… I’m afraid Cat Stevens got off the peace train a long time ago."

"Lord, my body has been a good friend But I won't need it when I reach the end Miles from nowhere, Guess I'll take my time Oh yeah, to reach there"

"Baby, I love you But if you wanna leave, take good care I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world It's hard to get by just upon a smile Oh, baby, baby, it's a wild world I'll always remember you like a child"

"Now that I've lost everything to you You say you wanna start something new And it's breakin' my heart you're leaving Baby, I'm grieving"

"I know many fine feathered friends But their friendliness depends on how you do They know many sure fired ways, To find out the one who pays And how you do"

"I’m looking for a hard-headed woman, One who will make me do my best, And if I find my hard-headed woman, I know the rest of my life will be blessed"

"My Lady D'Arbanville, why do you sleep so still? I'll wake you tomorrow, and you will be my fill, Yes, you will be my fill"

"The first cut is the deepest, Baby I know — The first cut is the deepest 'Cause when it comes to being lucky, she's cursed When it comes to lovin' me, she's worst But when it comes to being loved, she's first That's how I know The first cut is the deepest."

"I love my dog as much as I love you But you may fade, my dog will always come through."

"Life is a journey, you know; and a lot of journeys, you go out, you come back."

""Peace Train" is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions. There is a powerful need for people to feel that gust of hope rise up again. As a member of humanity and as a Muslim, this is my contribution to the call for a peaceful solution."

"In 1989, during the heat and height of the Satanic Verses controversy, I was silly enough to accept appearing on a program called Hypotheticals which posed imaginary scenarios by a well-versed (what if…?) barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC. I foolishly made light of certain provocative questions. When asked what I’d do if Salman Rushdie entered a restaurant in which I was eating, I said, “I would probably call up Ayatollah Khomeini”; and, rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author, I jokingly said I would have preferred that it'd be the “real thing”. Criticize me for my bad taste, in hindsight, I agree. But these comments were part of a well-known British national trait; a touch of dry humor on my part. Just watch British comedy programs like "Have I Got News For You" or “Extras”, they are full of occasionally grotesque and sardonic jokes if you want them! … Certainly I regret giving those sorts of responses now. However, it must be noted that the final edit of the program was made to look extremely serious; hardly any laughs were left in and much common sense was savagely cut out. Most of the Muslim participants in the program wrote in and complained about the narrow and selective use of their comments, surreptitiously selected out of the 3-hour long recording of the debate. But the edit was not in our hands. Balanced arguments were cut out and the most sensational quotes, preserved."

"I never called for the death of Salman Rushdie; nor backed the Fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini — and still don’t. The book itself destroyed the harmony between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis. When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that — like both the Torah and the Gospel — the Qur’an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you’re looking for them. However, the application of such Biblical and Qur’anic injunctions is not to be outside of due process of law, in a place or land where such law is accepted and applied by the society as a whole."

"Here's a chance, I think, for us to kind of remind ourselves, of those things we all commonly enjoy and love and share, try to get back together. You know, singing out for a more peaceful world today, I think, can only do good. … I do believe that … a lot of Muslims have yet to learn, you know, the incredible great history and contribution of Islamic civilization — and its become very, if you like, in some way puritanical — that puritanical approach will become narrower and narrower and even become more fragmented. Its that vast middle ground where people actually live, you know, that we have to reclaim; and in that area, everybody should be able to live together. And I don't think that God sent us prophets and books to fight about these books and these prophets. But they were telling us, actually, how to live together. If we ignore those teachings — whichever faith you belong, you profess, then I think we'll be finding ourselves in an even deeper mess."

"A big turning point happened when my son brought back a guitar into the house — You know, 'cause I'd given all those guitars away to charity — way back in 1979 and hadn't really touched the instrument, you know, for like two decades. … So then one day … when everybody's asleep and nobody's watching, I pick it up — and lo and behold, I still know where to put my fingers and out comes this music. I said, "Maybe I've got another job to do." And in this time and period it's probably the best thing I can do because lecturing, politics, God, I've got nothing to do with that. I want to just get heart-to-heart, make sure people understand some of the real subtle beauties of what I've discovered."

"Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry? Will you tell us when to live; will you tell us when to die? I know we've come a long way, We're changing day to day, But tell me, where do the children play?"

"I was a sitting target, in a way, for anybody who wanted to make some kind of headline. … I certainly never supported the Fatwa, but when I was asked about … the actual principle of blasphemy and capital punishment, well, like the Bible, I said, "You know, yeah, it's there, it's in the Koran." And I couldn't deny that."

"A lot of people would have loved me to keep singing … You come to a point where you have sung, more or less … your whole repertoire and you want to get down to the job of living. You know, up until that point, I hadn't had a life. I'd been searching, been on the road."

"I had to learn my faith and look after my family, and I had to make priorities. But now I've done it all and there's a little space for me to fill in the universe of music again."

"I wrote a song called "Father & Son" about the son running off to do his own thing. Now the story is about my son coming back and bringing a guitar into the house. A couple of years ago, one morning after prayers, his guitar was lying around. I picked it up and my fingers knew exactly where to go. I'd written some words and when I put them to music, it moved me and I realized I could have another job to do. Things just grew from there."

"The last place I wanted to return to was the music business. But it's the people and the cause that matter and right now there's an important need, which is bridge-building. I wanted to support the cause of humanity, because that's what I always sang about. Music can be healing, and with my history and my knowledge of both sides of what looks like a gigantic divide in the world, I feel I can point a way forward to our common humanity again. It's a big step for me but it's a natural step. I don't feel at all irked by the responsibility — I feel inspired."

"It seems to be the easiest thing in the world these days to make scurrilous accusations against Muslims, and in my case it directly impacts on my relief work and damages my reputation as an artist. The harm done is often difficult to repair."