Andy Rourke

I remember, my mom, she's lived in Spain for about thirty years, and we were playing the Royal Albert Hall, and she was with some friends from New York. Morrissey came out with the sign 'The Queen is Dead,' and my mom's friends are like, 'Oh my God.' They took it literally.

When I started playing the bass, I became kind of fascinated by it and started investigating various styles of bass playing, and I was really struck with funk music, mainly American funk music - Stanley Clarke, Funkadelic and that kind of stuff. That comes out in a couple of songs like 'Barbarism Begins at Home.'

Over the past decade... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?