Rome - the record was produced there and you have also moved to Rome - what was the reason?

Certainly the medieval aspects of the city, the wine, the architecture, style of the people and the beauty of the people, regardless whether you like man or woman or anything else - everybody appears to be beautiful, even homeless people are actually quite beautiful and wearing quite stylish clothes which is mesmerising to me...

In comparison with Los Angeles where I lived for many years, where style wasn't high on the agenda, ever, Rome swept over me like a beautiful tidal wave, and I was engulfed by it, and I expect it happens to many people.

I have been there (Rome) many times and I've been unaffected by Rome - I had no interest - but this was in the days when I didn't really have interest in anything at all, and regardless of where I was, while in Paris, Cologne - it was immaterial to me, I thought there was no country like England and I thought English people were superior to everybody else and everybody else's culture was laughable. But thankfully that sensation passed and I certainly don't feel that way these days.

You have left LA now. I read that you didn't like the omnipresence of the police there? Did you have problems with the police?

I have a few times, and the police are always especially unpleasant - and they don't need to be, but they are. Because they are above the law, they are beyond the law and people who are above the law, who are beyond the law are usually lawless and they can do as they please.

So it was a combination of the police problems and the Bush-thing - which was a topic on the last album as well as in the interviews around the release - that made you move?

Yes, it is. Because I think with governments when you have someone on top who is particularly unintelligent and who is very thuggish then it seeps down through to every other aspect of so called authority and everybody is acting without intelligence and with aggression and that is the present state of American society unfortunately - as the world knows - Bush isn't actually known for anything other than aggression.

In the opening album track I Will See You In Far Off Places, you say: 'Some people decide to save lives and some people decide to end lives' - is this meant as an objective statement of fact or is there more to it?

It is specifically, certainly with regards to Iraq, there has been a time, there came a time with people like Bush and Blair when they made decisions whereby they knew innocent Iraqis will be killed and that's because of the decision made by Bush and Blair not because of decisions made by Saddam Hussein, but by Bush and Blair.

The album title Ringleader Of The Tormentors - a disturber of peace - do you see yourself in that role?

I am totally in this position, because I find that people respond to me in two ways, they're either very interested and very dedicated or they think I'm despicable and there is no middle ground and for many many people I feel that I am a tormentor, simply by being I am a disruptor - and I accept that.

It's not because I'm not trying to be self-applauding. But in every art form I think if you push it forward other people will be disturbed and the people who say things that are awkward and those who say things that the masses don't really want to hear are not the most popular ones - but mass opinion is always wrong and is always bad, and all the artists in music who sell 60 million albums are always the dreadful artists, they are never the creative geniuses. They are always the worst aspects of modern music who appeal to the mass though - because the masses are ridiculous.

Do you think there is a lack of people questioning authority?

I think there are many people who do question authority and there are many people who try to affect change but it isn't popular and certainly this country is quite fascist, America is completely fascist. So anybody who is intolerable of the government is obviously silenced - and certainly pop music is very pro-establishment and it's very frightened.

You have a long tradition of opposing politicians, like Thatcher and now Blair and Bush. So do you think - to strip it down - that art can change anything?

It's very difficult, I think it can make life bearable for many people and that is all you can require but I don't know about affecting change because for the most part people aren't interested in arts and for the most people aren't interested in artists.

Most people are not artistic and if you confess that you are you have to explain yourself and it's a struggle sometimes.

Is Bono's way a possibility for you? Would you like to be 'involved' more - or do you think the level you are at right now is enough?

It's enough and I'm surprised that I'm still here and it's 20 years on from The Queen Is Dead and I'm still here and people want to speak to me and anticipate this album - it's a very unique position. But as for pop-artists who are seen to be political we only think they are political because they are photographed with politicians. I can't really think of anything political that has been said in music for many years.

The people are still interested because you still make these great records...

I hope so!

Do you think that your relationship to society changes as you grow older?

It doesn't change. And if as a child you feel marginalised, then you remain so. And it doesn't matter what predicaments you find yourself in and equally if you live your life as a child as carefree and ridiculously pampering then you feel that way even if you live a life in poverty. I think the spirit within is put together in very formative years and there's nothing you can do about it, that's what you are, there you go and off you go and off you suffer...

I think we all need society and we all live within society and we have to rely upon society and if you are trying to say: 'I don't need society' and then you are in a car crash, and you actually need to be whisked to hospital, otherwise your life will fall off, so there is nobody who can say: I don't need society. We are society.

Do you have to fight to be a vegetarian; do you need strength for it?

It's basically a moral issue. I think it's basically a matter of basic intelligence and a lot of people, their brains are not fully formed and their brains don't work properly and they can't make the right connections to understanding develop suffering - so I think it's a matter of intelligence and enlightenment.

Do you think it's okay to be militant to get people into vegetarianism or other animal protection areas?

You must be militant because the opposing force is very, very militant, the meat industry is very militant and very strong and if dare to say anything against McDonald's or any of the enormous chains their lawyers will get on top, they'll flatten you - so I think the meat industry couldn't possibly be more aggressive so in response to that you have to be also...

On the record you mentioned 'living longer than I had intended something must have gone right' - I guess you did not expect to be around for as long as you have...

Honestly, I really didn't think I'd still be here at this time at this age I didn't think I'd be here and I didn't think I'd be talking to people such as yourself about things that is Ringleader Of The Tormentors - it's a mystery to me.

Because you would have chosen to kill yourself?

Yes. Because as a teenager I examined life and I examined every option and I didn't want anything to have to do with it.

And what made you step back from doing it?

I couldn't. I found society, as you call it, I found it to be boring and I found people to be largely disgusting and there was no place for me, at all. And I couldn't possibly join the work force and I couldn't possibly feel great sympathy for the people in London and anybody else. Impossible.

Your opinion has changed now? On the new album you say: 'No, not me - this cannot be dear God, take him, take them, take anyone, the still-born, the new-born, the infirm - take anyone from. Take people from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - just spare me'.

Well, at the final moment, when it's time for you to go, it's just simply a question of kicking. No, it can't possibly be my turn - how can this creation be ended, what's the point of anything of this creation, all this knowledge, all this experience - how can I be wiped out, simply because it's my turn?

Is thinking about food and stuff like that also something that has to do with age?

Yes, because now people read ingredients. And they didn't read ingredients in the past. People weren't interested; they just expected that everything was safe. And now we know it isn't, and now we know that virtually everything is poisoned. So you have to be very careful, because something will get you. Now the option is thinkable that it can finish you off. But it's very encouraging that people suddenly care about food, and people suddenly seem to have standards. Because everything is toxic and it's fascinating how little you can actually care about just throwing something into your body.

Do you think the complexities and ambition of songs like Life Is A Pigsty and Dear God, Please Help Me are the result of two people working together?

Yes. And he was very, very attentive for 24 hours of every day. And that's also an important factor when you make music, you are there constantly. And people think it can go into three hours a day. But when you are there for 15 hours solid, working, suddenly your body goes in a slight overdrive and it's like you've been awake for too long and you get light headed and you almost hallucinate, but that's what happens if you are locked into a studio, and you are pushing a song and it's moving in a beautiful way, but Tony was like that and it was very enlightening.

There's a lot of sceptical quotes from you regarding the press, it seems like it's mostly the UK press.

Well in England it is very difficult for me, because if you have bad reviews, and I have many bad reviews, and very personal and very scale and very attacking, there is generally a reason for it and the reason is usually personal to the magazine that is if you don't grant them interviews they will take revenge and if you don't comply with them they will take revenge and I have a long history of this in England because I don't fraternise with music journalists, and I don't give them my phone number and I don't meet them at the pub and they become very affronted by that because they feel that they have worked their way into the industry of journalism and once they are established then they should command your attention and you need them so therefore when I refuse...

You talked honestly about record label policy before this album came out. You mentioned that nothing with Sanctuary was yet fixed, but you also blamed your old label for not making Vauxhall And I as successful as it could have been - was that why you didn't release any new records for seven years?

Yes it was. I was trying to tread very carefully and I didn't want to be with a label that didn't really want me because I've experienced that with EMI in England and SIRE in America. And it's very heartbreaking to be with a label where you make an album and it's a play back of your album and nobody turns up. But when I made You Are The Quarry with Sanctuary a hundred people came to listen and I never experienced that before. I never experienced people coming in and wanting to know what you've been building. I found that to be extraordinary.

You changed a lot of lives with your music. But you don't like so many contemporary tunes - is this a way of being coquettish or is it that you genuinely don't see one single artist you are interested in coming out the last two decades - even the ones who are obviously inspired by your work.

Mostly no. I'm very critical. And all I see constantly on the floors and this is why I don't want to be a part of the pop community 'cause I don't want to know all those people. I don't want to know all those people who make dreadful music and you end up smiling with them in photographs and some are really silly. But for the most part but I think the music is just dreadful, but has the capacity to be unspeakably beautiful - but it's an industry and it's churned out...

Do you listen to a lot?

I hear everything. But I don't like it. And it's always the really dreadful, horrible groups who become enormous it's never the really good groups, always the dreadful groups.