"i didn't have any friends! no, i'd been in this group and we'd played cambridge. as i sat on the toilet after the show, i asked myself, 'are we having fun? are we making money?' that was when i decided to stop playing and found that the others wanted to stop as well. next came a long succession of staying on people's floors and sponging off people. i fled to northampton and decided that i could write songs on my own, and did it. it all started from my own amusement on a two-track cassette player. then i met david "elvis" barker (boss of glass records)."

"ah..... maximillian!! i've known max for a long time, i lived in oxford with him and we played in several groups together. i'm not signing him off, but he was playing in all these trendy type bands and i was acting against that sort of music."

"of course. the jazz butcher is me."

this line up has been going since april '84, none of us see the jazz butcher splitting up yet, but David J. always has his solo projects. it's not like some groups who change totally as soon as they lose a member, if we lost a member we'd still be much the same. after all, the jazz butcher line up has changed a few times. the old line - up which was basically me and Max Eider , used to do a solo act, and now and again rolo of the The Woodentops would play bass for us."

"obviously money does interest me, i have to eat. i'd be a liar if i didn't say i have expensive tastes. but really, money doesn't interest me that much."

"i like drink, drugs... and a lot of other things, but i won't go into that. yeah, i like a lot of things, i even like rock & roll."

"do you really want to know? it was the Sex Pistols. it sounds pathetic but i was 18, i had long hair, and was at the front of the lyceum. they weren't particularly brilliant but it was just a great atmosphere."

"yeah, but really all they were playing was rock & roll. probably the Kinks were doing the same in their day, but nobody thought of the kinks as being a threat to society."

"mostly happy things, you've got your Bob Dylans and John Cales to make all the social statements. but i'm really into song writers like ray davies or Brian Eno, just any old stuff that occurs, you know. usually the title and the lyrics weave a sort of pattern, hopefully. i rarely get inspired to write songs about girl-boy experiences, or boy-cat experiences. a lot of people think the jazz butcher is quite a wacky guy, they don't realize that my songs are quite serious matters. it's just that the subject often isn't obvious, i don't comment on the situation, i just present the situation."

"if the world were a good place, there would always be a southern mark smith. it's quite selfish really, but there should always be a jazz butcher. southern mark smith is not a derogatory comment, he is a good man, too many people have an image of him being a twisted bastard. what it boils down to is that most people chip away at taking the piss, where as he just goes in full steam ahead."

"not really, because if i ever got bored with myself then something would be very strange."

"the jesus and mary chain. i've got to say the The Woodentops because of rolo, i really like the folk devils at the moment.... let's talk about tracie."

"no, i just saw her picture. i wonder, if she walked in here right now, if she'd buy me a drink? oh, one thing; you've got to mention this bloke trebor-loy, one man and his acoustic guitar. he sings about not being old enough to vote."

"you've got to remember that perhaps this is all you're going to get, but if it stops tomorrow i'll be happy, because i had a good time. after we'd finished the new album, i said to Max Eider "if i die now, i'll die happy"."

"beautiful."