I get writer's block all the time. The only way I can write what I consider to be good lyrics is to put myself through the mill.
If you're a lead singer, then you can't afford to be sensitive. On stage, everyone looks at the lead singer, even if you don't want them to - in America, they have those massive follow spots on you all the time; it does your head in. So, if you are a lead singer and you don't toughen up, you're in the wrong job, and you have to get out.
I used to be a party monster, very into Acid House, which I saw as my weekend reward for working hard all week.
There's only two choices when life goes wrong. You deal with it, or you check out, and, like 90% of people, I go for the former.
My mother, Laura Sumner, had cerebral palsy. She was born absolutely fine, but after about three days, she started having convulsions that left her with a condition that would confine her to a wheelchair her entire life.
I'm not interested in how well someone can sing. It's what you're singing that interests me.
If you choose to take a path in life, don't blame other people for the path you've chosen to take.
With guitar, bass and drums, you've got limited horizons.
I'm terrible with decisions. And I can't make myself do something I don't like. I can't knuckle under.
If you have a bereavement in your family, it's a terrible, terrible thing. But, you know, time passes. It's part of the cycle. It doesn't hurt so much.
It's impossible to capture every single facet of someone's personality in a film.
I felt that by the late '90s, I'd gone as far as I could with the keyboard.
It's weird: people used to want your autograph; now what they want to do is to take your photograph with an iPhone. And sometimes they'll pop their arm around you to hold their iPhone; they're shaking when they take it.
There's parts of touring I like. I like the actual performance part, but the bit when you're in the airport waiting at the carousel for your bags to come around, I don't like that a bit.
It can be an educational thing to play your songs to people because you see where you've gone right and where you've gone wrong.
In New Order, I played about 95% of the synths. It's not much fun for the other guys in the band when I'm playing my synth parts.
I knew from working with New Order that I enjoyed working with Phil Cunningham.
Part of the reason I joined Joy Division was so that I really wouldn't have to grow up.
Los Angeles produced the Beach Boys. Dusseldorf produced Kraftwerk. New York produced Chic. Manchester produced Joy Division.
I never knew my father. He'd disappeared from the scene before I was born, and I still have no idea who he is. Perhaps strangely, it's never bothered me; I certainly don't believe it's really affected me.
