Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.

I was in a little punk band and we put out a few punk records that weren't very political, at all.

We read our own political content into The Clash, and they accepted it.

I came into this whole business by going to see Rock Against Racism gigs with the Clash.

By the time I was 19, punk had occurred. It had a completely different cultural dynamic to it which rejected everything and started again from the year zero.

In that sense, I became politicized because the people in the coal mining villages who were involved in the struggle knew why they were there. But they couldn't understand why some pop star from London would want to be there.