Why should I buy your record?
So I can put out folk records on my label by people even wanner and feyer than myself.
First record you bought?
Breakaway by the Beach Boys. If only it had been Leonard Cohen, but unfortunately not. I’m a Black Country boy.
What will you do when you grow up?
Asking a question like that to someone 15 years into a midlife crisis could tip them over the edge. Actually, I don’t feel like a man in crisis, this album was the end of my midlife crisis.
One big influence?
The Incredible String Band. They were the first band I saw. Seeing them I thought pop music was all about two men and two women sitting on a floor, going “Ducks on a pond, ducks on a pond, very pretty swimming around.” Most people hated them but I think they were a turning point in pop.
When were you most frightened?
I was in New York on September 11. All day there’d been the sound of sirens and then in the middle of the night, four or five sirens started simultaneously. I thought, “This is it”.
Advertisement
When did you last spend £10,000?
I just paid my tax, it involved that figure. I can’t remember ever earning that amount but that’s what they said.
It’s my round, what are you drinking?
A Long Island ice tea or an absinthe.
Tintin or Astérix?
Astérix. No neither, they’re for kids. I’m a grown-up. William Burroughs. Rilke . . . in German.
PHOEBE GREENWOOD