Source: The Guardian

Life is both joyous and devastating,

so we should see that in pop music. We should have dark lyrics and massive melodies, songs that are meaningful yet still as catchy as hell. I’m not a fan of this parallel kind of Disney candy-floss pop universe.

I was a manic and eccentric kid.

In my head I was very busy, so I must have seemed weird. I never wanted anything “normal”. In the summer I would stand in the street wearing roller skates that had no wheels, just giant springs.

I know that Annie Lennox has saved my life

quite a few times, and I never forget that. The most vivid memory is waking up in bed with her to find a Hell’s Angel kneeling over me with speed on a flick knife. She made him leave.

Mick Jagger is the sort of person who constantly surprises me.

When I had pneumonia he flew me out to the Caribbean, such is his generosity. And another time I arrived in Paris and he had arranged the bridal suite with my girlfriend from Brazil lying in a bed of red roses waiting for me.

Drugs seem to have the opposite

to the expected effect on my body. On speed I could hardly speak and when I took LSD I got lost in the carpet for a couple of years. Now I don’t shut up, so it’s as if the drugs are finally working, despite the fact I’m clean.

My vice is a vodka martini

every night at around 8pm. That, and a couple of erotic fantasies.

It’s hard to find the loving relationship

that works on every level, but I got it eventually, with my wife Anoushka [he was previously married to Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama and Shakespears Sister]. There’s falling in love and being in love and then love with your best friend.

Most people who get into power

in the western world start with great intentions, but slowly they all become entrapped and hung by their own petard. I don’t really follow them, but I listen to what they say and make up my own mind about the few bits and pieces I understand.

Every year there are twice as many bullets

produced as people. Gun sales have shot up since the Colorado shootings. The problem is two-fold: people are buying more weapons before laws change, and people are buying weapons to protect themselves.

I like people who are minimalist with their words.

Jack Nicholson thinks a lot then says something, and it’s always spot on. Nelson Mandela is the same.

People ask me if I think outside the box.

I haven’t seen the box.

I would like to go back to 1968

and spend all day on the steps of The Cat and Dog watching thousands of Sunderland working girls sunbathing in a row, sheltered by the rocks, in pale blue bikinis, eating ice creams.

Dave Stewart‘s album The Ringmaster General is out on 3 September, with live UK dates from 3-7 September (davestewart.com)