Jamie Hince

“I do believe in ghosts, but I haven't seen one. I can imagine that you cross over to the other side, some different dimension or whatever, but how do your clothes get there? Ghosts are always wearing clothes.”

“I feel some allegiance to pushing electric-guitar music into a different realm, somewhere that isn't retrospective. There's a lot of guitar bands that are a tribute to the 1970s or the Nineties. I want to experiment with guitar music more.”

“When I see my picture in the papers, I imagine that people think I'm a lot more serious than I am. They probably think I'm pretty miserable.”

“Did groupies ever interest me? No. I'm a pleasure seeker, and I like going bananas, but that's never appealed to me. I always thought it was a little bit naff.”

“I get excited by being in the studio and could never get burnt out in there.”

“Photography is a big part of my life: taking photographs, being around photographers.”

“I was vegan for about 20 years.”

“I've started to fall for New Orleans recently. There's real life there, if you know what I mean.”

“'The Tin Drum' is one of my favourite books of all time - I've probably got 12 or 15 copies with different covers, different translations - but it's also just about my favourite film.”

“I start the day off with a pot of coffee, and I read all the newspapers online, then I delve around for new music.”

“I used to take 'Visions of Cody' by Jack Kerouac on tour all the time. I don't really love Kerouac, but that book, you could just open at any page and find something incredible for that day.”

“I panic when we're on tour and feel the world can leave you behind. When we finish touring, I feel like I'm running to catch up and find out what's been happening.”

“The best part of touring has to be playing shows.”

“A freshly pressed suit is a miracle when you're travelling. When your suitcase has turned all your clothes into creased rags, and you've crossed so many time zones that you can't tell a Monday from a Thursday, putting on a freshly pressed suit for breakfast is like spending a week in a spa.”

“There are plenty of cities that have given me the time of my life for a week or two - including Sao Paulo, Paris, and New York - but London has an enduring appeal that keeps on unfolding.”

“In high school, I listened to The Jam, stuff like that, a lot of English bands, really. And then I got into anarcho-punk bands that nobody had heard of.”

“I love when a song is conceived as a jigsaw puzzle in the studio, and then it's a natural to play live. That's my gauge of success for a song.”

“I loved all that riot-grrl scene and Nation of Ulysses and Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear. I loved it. It was the moment sort of first growing up where bands had stopped looking like roadies.”

“I saw a picture of a girl using an eyelash curler when I was a kid, and I thought it was some sort of torture device, the eye guillotine.”

“I'm probably quite practical when I'm on stage. I start off with a leather jacket, and then get too hot and take it off. I don't think too much about it.”