Where were you last night?

We were travelling back from Leeds watching Scarface in our little van. And we got all the way from Leeds to London and the film still hadn't finished! There's this brilliant scene at the end where there's just this massive mountain of cocaine and he sticks his head in it! And he's so out of his head that he falls face forward into this coke, haha. Then he goes and gets his machine gun and blows everybody up - but it's a brilliant film.

The gig in Leeds was good too, well it couldn't be any worse than the last time we played there. We just fell apart. So when we went back this time we were quite determined. Apparently Leeds is quite a hard audience. But I understand that. When I go to gigs it's like, Come on, impress me - I'm completely with Bobby Gillespie on that. You've gone to a gig, you've paid your money, there's no reason why you shouldn't expect anything but brilliance.

How would you rescue the Happy Mondays' flagging career?

That's all bollocks. What is this? Just from one NME interview they're really coming down on them. I didn't read it, of course, haha. I just think that you should let the music speak for itself. I think they write really good music, good funky music, and to me they haven't got a problem. I still like what they do.

How fed up of Vic Reeves are you on a scale of one to ten?

Eleven. Eleven. I started being fed up of him the minute I saw him. It's a dreadful thing to say but I don't like him as a comedian. And I don't like him as a singer. He's just not my cup of tea, I don't really have any opinion of him, he's just there. I love all the Young Ones and I really love Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French. The first Bottom was really brilliant but it just became The Young Ones for adults. Like when Tiswas turned into OTT. It doesn't work. Humour is really basic and when you try to intellectualise it that will only cut across to adults, I don't think it works. Most people in their minds and in their senses of humour are pretty childish. That's how The Young Ones worked. Viz makes me laugh, when they get it right.

Did you buy 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?

No, but my mum did. Yes, she did force me to listen to it, and to 'Fat Bottomed Girls'. My mum was a massive Queen fan. I can't say I ever got into learning all the words, the 'scaramoosh scaramoosh' bits, but my mum walked round the kitchen saying that. I was in my I-don't-listen-to-my-mother's-music-stage. I was a punk! I was jumping up and down in my bedroom to my music.

I felt really sad when Freddie Mercury died. The thought of anybody dying in that sort of pain is just terrible. The guy was just living his life, his own life, and he died because of it. Horrible. I'd feel the same about anybody.

What do you think of Adam Clayton's penis?

It's impressively large. Oh Gawd, it's large. No wonder he did a shot with no clothes on! Would I ever get my kit off for the cover of an LP? No. But there's nothing really impressively large about my body. Whatever he wants to do... The picture isn't really good, he's just standing there with his hands straight down by his side, just posing against a wall. I'm sure it's just an ironic comment or a band in-joke, but I don't understand it. It would be funny it he was like running from a room or something, like he'd been caught out somehow. Or getting changed in a dressing room and they just snapped him...

Will you be signing for Madonna's new record label?

Well, it's about time she did something with all the money she's made. The best thing you can do if you've made the amount of money that's made out of music is plough it back in. She should develop her own record label, one where she will find acts and bands that wouldn't necessarily get a major recording contract, that are far more experimental and not quick-buck, high-turnover major label stuff. That would be fantastic. That's what I would do if I made 32 million quid a year.

Are Curve closet goths?

No, we're outside the closet looking in. We're like whirling dervishes when it comes to that, we just whirl around the place, round the closet... Occasionally we may poke a toe-nail in, yeah. But no music is sacred to me. I'm not precious. There's just good music and bad music. You hear a record and go, Yeah I'll buy it. Or not. Categorising music is just wrong.

But I think goth make-up is fantastic. It's just high drama, real peacock stuff and that's quite important for people. It's a really primal thing. Loads of goths you meet, although their clothes and their hair are black, their make-up is outrageous. Eye-liner, massive red lips, really really defined cheekbones with black blusher... They look amazing.

Chuck D Or lce-T?

Ooooooh Gooooood. Hmmm. I think they're both ill-informed, because I don't think the salvation of this planet is going to come from segregation, it's going to come from integration and I don't think they understand that concept. Or want to.

I was on a panel with them both when I was in New York once and my impression was that they were flakey. And their philosophy was flakey. Ice-T is vile, he started the whole thing by saying beautiful women were only good to fuck. And they didn't want to talk about music, they just talked about selling a million units in a week. And they think that if they just put onto the end of every answer they give '200 years of slavery' then they'll get away with it.

Like, this guy from the Village Voice asked Chuck D to explain the difference between the bigotry of racism and the bigotry of Flavor Flav saying he hates homosexuals. And he just spluttered, he didn't have an answer. But this fucking band go and lecture to young black Americans in college! Public Enemy are one of the most important bands there will be, they're a statement band, they should be giving precise, concise information to people, that's their function - and they don't even have a proper philosophy. They can't even get past the barrier of calling women bitches.

Is it true that your dad was a pirate?

No - but he was a bit of a mutinous rogue. Me and my sisters were brought up on a boat in Europe. Him and my mum had these grand kind of hippy dreams that we'd sell everything that we had -the car, the house, the business, because he was an estate agent - and buy this boat and go to the South Of France and make a bloody fortune chartering it out to rich people in San Tropez and Antibes. So we went to live in Antibes for two years and... starved! No one was interested in chartering. We ended up going off to Italy and to Greece and to Spain and everywhere. When I got back to this country I had complete culture-shock - I was away from when I was three to when I was eight.

I haven't seen my dad since. My parents split up and that was it. I'm glad in a kind of way because at least they never argued or anything. I'm convinced he's in some Spanish jail and they've thrown the key away. He was a very romantic figure - I mean, it was a family full of girls and I think we were all madly in love with him. He was brilliant.

(article nicked from 'Select', 1991)