"It pisses me off when people dismiss us as kids' music. I put it down to post-adolescent paranoia. It can't be easy for people to take us seriously when we're so much younger and more successful than them."
"It (Ash, and music) was about not being conventional, not fitting in with society, being free."
"The songs are all about innocence and belief, you feel secure when you're at home. You don't have to worry about everything and you're completely free. Even though you might be at school, you can still do whatever you want and get away with it."
"Nirvana showed us you can still be powerful with one guitar."
"I have to say that all our parents were totally supportive of the band, but I think they were supportive of us keeping it as a hobby, and hoping we would all get proper jobs"
"You need to see my room to believe it. It's a shrine to Nirvana. There's not a square inch of my walls that aren't covered - even a wee picture from NME goes up there."
"We knew where we were at, and we wanted to get to do what we wanted, to have control. Infectious gave us that."
"I hated school. I wasn't getting on well at home and me and Tim were having a few problems. So I started fucking myself up and taking loads of drugs."
"I can't remember much about the first few months. I was a total paranoid wreck, I had no grasp of reality at all. I was seeing shrinks but they just fucked me up more. At times I really thought I had gone mad. Other times I thought I was dying, a couple of times I thought I was dead. And sometimes I wished I was dead."
"Next time we're on Top of The Pops, I'm going to set myself on fire"
"My favourite character is Darth Vader. I got this rubber Darth Vader helmet in Japan, which is really cool. Mark's got the whole collection apart from one"
"I'm sure Tim and Mark thought I was a geek until they knew me. I mean, I used to drum in the church band!"
"I almost had a nervous breakdown at Later with Jools Holland. (
a TV show) I mean that literally. We'd done some speed the night before to stay up, and, as we were playing the songs, my heart was beating way too fast."