When I started out, everyone seemed to be adopting these names... Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious. I wasn't really Rotten or Vicious or Nasty, so I wanted something a bit more funny - yet something that seemed real rock 'n' roll... something that acknowledged my ambition.
I'm not talking with an American accent. I haven't gone off and become Sammy Hagar.
I'm not trying to hide from my past. I want to roll in it. Like a dog, rolling in feces, I'm rolling in the feces of my greatest hits - that's a bit of a wild way of looking at it, but I am a man, and we do like rolling in our own feces at times.
It's like, what happened, I was always leading fashion, and then the grunge thing kind of came along. And because I've been so on top in the '80s you know, I, you know, what can I do? Suddenly go grunge?
I love it when someone insults me. That means that I don't have to be nice anymore.
I'm really a singer, so I love songs and I love singing. I like rap music, but I didn't grow up freestyling.
My dad was one of the reasons I got into rock and roll, because I was learning the ropes of his business, which was selling powertools, and I was looking for a way out from under his heel. I was like, 'Where's the fun? Where's the glamour?'
My hair used to be real long, and my parents were encouraged when I cut it. They thought I was going 'straight,' but I was just getting weirder - at least in their eyes. I was getting into the punk thing.
