"...it's a funny thing with Tony [Visconti] because he doesn't feature hugely, at the end we only recorded 4 tracks in New York in a month which was the best experience we've had for a long time and he was brilliant. He was the catalyst for us just to get our confidence back, more than anything else, I mean he produced "Ashes To Ashes" and that was, it's not sort of the Glam Bowie we were interested in, it was very much the kind of Berlin to "Let's Dance." At the end of it he just said, you guys know what you're doing now. He's just a real good people-person. You can't go in with a person like him unless you really know what you're doing. So it just made us much better."

Nicky Wire, Irish radio interview, October 2004

"...there's little things like on a song like "Always/Never" on the album [Lifeblood], Nick actually started playing some slap bass which would've been heresy for us, you know from age 15 onwards, but I could say no, keep doing that, that's really good. And I could see the ongoing battle in his head, he was thinking no it sounds like fucking Cameo or it sounds like Level 42. And I'd be like, no, it sounds like "Ashes To Ashes" by David Bowie. If it's cool, if we're cool, it'll be cool."

James Dean Bradfield, Irish radio interview, October 2004

"This is the first and maybe the last gig I'll ever do. It's a bit like David Bowie retiring Ziggy Stardust."

Nicky Wire, speaking to NME.COM before his solo debut at the Guardian-On-Hay Festival, Wales, 4 June 2006

"You know how you get a lot of bands that won't play your favourites, won't play the audience's favourite songs, well, we've never been that band...I do kind of believe in the Springsteen-esque kind of entertainment ethic where people have paid to see you so you go out there and you give them the songs that they want to hear. The one unchanged thing abour being in a band whenever you're confronted with how the music industry has changed in that playing live is still the one thing you're still completely in control of. You're still standing on the same stage that David Bowie stood on, you're still standing on the same stage that The Clash stood on and you still actually feel as if you are part of rock 'n' roll tradition."

James Dean Bradfield, The Drum Media, 14 October 2010, p.21

"...with Ian McCulloch, Echo & the Bunnymen were the first band that me, Richey and James went to see live. He came to our studio in Cardiff and he was the brightest light. It was like watching Bing Crosby and David Bowie doing a tune together in the room. It's so great that you can pick up a phone and say, 'do you wanna do this? Okay? Let's do it.'"

Sean Moore, X-Press Magazine #1236, 21 October 2010, p.18

"When you get to our age you've gotta do something so fucking engaging and exciting for yourself, let alone the public. The last five years we've had such a great run that you don't wanna fucking spoil that. It's not that we're short of songs or anything. It's just gotta be the final phase of the band, really, one more leap, one more reinvention... We've got a lot of demos. We've got maybe 15 or 16 songs. There's a tender, acoustic unsettling side and there's a very European kind of David Bowie or early Simple Minds side at the moment. We're just fucking around, sometimes Sean's playing synths, I'm playing guitar and James is playing drums - we're just pissing around a lot."

Nicky Wire, Irish Examiner, 7 October 2012

Sean's shirt...