I wrote you a letter and I told you you were dead

"I've always felt more comfortable with the bad reviews than the good ones. Well, until I decided to stop reading them. I'm the kind of person that if I'm in a room with twenty people all saying, 'That's good' and there's one person saying, 'You know what, that sucks', I'll be going, 'He's right! I'm sure it does suck…' After any approval you'd get a little frisson that lasted twenty minutes from somebody saying something nice, then… That unleashes a lot of self-doubt that turns into self-loathing. I've found that a lot over the years. With those emotions comes the rapid retreat from wanting to do it at all. And that's what happened back in the 90s.

"I went kind of nuts ... I ended up in hospital. I was not a well man. That was the decision made for me. So I retreated back to Usk in Wales. I'd always liked the place when I was a kid. I knew it was quiet and I knew it had some nice pubs. I just wanted to get away from everybody. So I did. I split up with my girlfriend, split from my management, split up with the musicians in the band, left the record labels and left my flat in Islington empty. I left everything there for years."

-- Green Gartside of Scritti Politti interviewed by Robin Turner, 2011