Art school had taught me it was far better to be a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success.

I was taught that to create anything you had to believe in failure, simply because you had to be prepared to go through an idea without any fear. Failure, you learned, as I did in art school, to be a wonderful thing. It allowed you to get up in the morning and take the pillow off your head.

I left school at 16 and my mother got me a job as a trainee wine taster. But one day I followed some girls into St Martin's art school and saw a voluptuous woman sitting on a stool being sketched. I decided to get myself fired.

Stealing things is a glorious occupations, particularly in the art world.

I went to Cal Arts. I went to art school.

The Pistols were like my work of art. They were my canvas.