On Tour

We kicked off again in April, a little show in London then touring England and doing shows on the continent - fly out, fly back. Now we're starting with the festivals, doing one every four or five days up to the end of August when we go to America. The band is so big that the logistics of setting it up means that to make it worthwhile you have to keep going. I've done everything in this game, including tour management, but now I just work on the creative side. Travelling used to disorientate me, but I'm a lot more centred in myself now - reality is your own inner reality and all that. I enjoy the festivals, because I tend to get more privacy on the road than I do in London. I do a lone groove: when I'm not performing I'll have a workout, a swim, do some meditation and disappear.

There have been so many bad gigs. The worst one was in America about 10 years ago. We got there and all the fellows were really wired up. The tour manager asked them for half the money up front. This was a mistake. You either ask for all the money or none, this wasn't the sort of place that would bother turning a band over for dollars 3,000, because they had other sources of income, shall we say. The chief was furious - after the show he was telling the tour manager that if he ever insulted him again, his body would end up in the river. It wasn't a joke situation, but I was drunk and found it quite funny. He got a gun out, waved it around and went to put it back. I said to him, 'You can't just put it away, you've got to kill him'. The tour manager didn't find it funny.

Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart play the Womad Festival, Reading 22 Jul

(Photograph omitted)