Ian Brown

“Since we were kids, we grow up believing that astronauts are heroes - that to go up in a rocket is a heroic thing. These guys are bigger than movie stars. To me, it's... all a well-dressed-up lie, basically. There's billions spent on rockets up there, and there's millions starving down here. It don't make sense to me.”

“We wrote 'Stellify' for Rihanna, but as we got to the end of writing it, I thought, 'You know what? I'm gonna keep this for myself. We'll give her another one.' She'd have probably sung it better, but it is too good for me not to do it.”

“I wasn't on stage to be worshipped or for people to look up to me. I was with the crowd.”

“When The Stone Roses first came out, the early reviews called me 'simian.' I had to look that up at the time.”

“Everything I've ever achieved, I've done on my terms.”

“Some of the kids who discovered me from my 'F.E.A.R.' record or one of the U.N.K.L.E. tunes have said, 'I don't even like the Roses; I love your solo stuff.' I buzz off that.”

“I see The Stone Roses in '89 as Technicolor: we were all about joy and possibilities of life.”

“I liked him, that Jarvis Cocker. I like the fact he was androgynous, he could appeal to everybody. He wasn't just a lad pretending to be a thug.”

“I like the fact that a group can become successful, and by way of what you are, you can show up all the other people who are around you.”

“I used to be one of those kids who couldn't keep my mouth shut.”

“It's a horrible name, Coldplay. It doesn't conjure up any positive thoughts.”

“By 1993, the Stone Roses had become this huge, beautiful cruise ship just floating about in the middle of nowhere with no captain.”

“I started managing myself in October 2004, and since then, it's gone up and up.”

“Hell is being stuck in a lift with Elton John and the Queen Mother.”

“I feel like the Roses were a great group, but I never wanted to try to do it again. I knew I couldn't get a band that would compare to the Roses, that would have an impact like the Roses.”

“We should be growing carrots up the side of the Empire State Building or Big Ben.”

“I was really into punk when I was about 14.”

“I like a lot of that Chicago stuff, house music.”

“I went to a friend's 40th in Manchester, and there was a karaoke machine, and no one was having a go. My mate said, 'No one's singing because you're in the room.' I said, 'Who am I, Frank Sinatra?' They made me sing flipping 'My Star' to a backing track that sounded like '80s Roxy Music. It was pretty embarrassing, but I did it.”

“I wrote a lot of lyrics in prison, but they'd all be like, 'Crawls upon the shoulders, hatred in the eyes.' I wrote about 50 songs in there that were all about jail. I've come out and thought, 'I've only served eight weeks; I can't really write a concept album about jail.'”