My name is Billy Childish. I was born in Chatham, Kent, where I still live. I left school in 1976, when I was 16. Because I have no qualifications I was turned down by art school, so I went to work in Chatham Dockyard as an apprentice stonemason.

• I later managed to get onto a painting course at St Martins School of Art on what was called the genius clause.
• My father left home when I was aged 7.
• I was sexually abused by a friend of the family when I was aged nine.
• In 1979 I worked for four weeks at Oakwood mental hospital as a ward porter.
• I was expelled from St Martins school of art in 1981 for writing what was described as 'The worst type of toilet wall humour.'
• I was diagnosed dyslexic when I was 28.
• I have won two commendations in the national poetry prize.
• I taught Tracy Emin to paint and cook and her confessional work takes its precedent from mine.
• I am friends with Peter Doig and Matthew Higgs.
• I have published 30 collections of poetry and two novels.
• I have made about 100 independent LP records and painted over 2,000 paintings.
• I learned to play guitar when I was 21.
• I paint every Sunday in the front bedroom of my mother's house,
• When I was 17 I had a bank account under the name of Kurt Schwitters.
• My father has tried to kill himself several times.
• 1 have a ten-year-old brother .
• I am married to a mixed race girl from Seattle.
• I do not own a television set.
• I believe that life is a spiritual journey.
• I lived on the dole for 15 years.
• I practice Vipassana meditation and Iyenga yoga.
• I do not like whitewall galleries, large rock venues or off-stage mixing.
• I am a member of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
• I do not read newspapers or go to music concerts.
• When I was 21 I beat my father up on his release from prison for drug smuggling.
• I do not like fashion culture.
• I was bullied for my entire childhood.
• I am an ex-alcoholic.
• When I was 12 I used to dress up in women's clothing and walk the streets.
• I have had sex with a dog.
• I have a two-year-old son called Huddie.
• I believe in reincarnation and the law of karma.
• I was not allowed to sing in the school choir because I was tone deaf
• In 1983 I caught gonorrhea and herpes from a German prostitute.
• I am self-taught.
• I have never studied art history.
• My favourite artist is Vincent van Gogh and like him I believe in God.
• I do not hate anyone.
• I want to bring about a spiritual renaissance in life and art.

You've been playing for 25 years, most of that time you played a style that has been unfashionable. You've stayed true to the sound and now that music Is in vogue, how do you feel about that?
It is true that the music we play has not ever been particular fashionable, but that is rather the point. Even in 1977 we spoilt our chances by refusing to play in London. Then, when punk turned into new romanticism, we decided to go backwards into rock 'n' roll.

Every now and then someone comes along who likes us. There was Mudhoney and Nirvana, then we had Beck and now we have these new chaps: The White Stripes and The Hives. I'm glad that they like us and we can play a few shows, but we are not pop stars, we are the real thing, and the real thing can never be in fashion.

We are too interested in sound and being small scale. We don't want to hide behind volume and monitors , we want to close the 15 feet between us and the audience, to have true communication and show people how to do it for themselves.

All my work belongs close to the ground, close to instinct and the elemental. That's why I refuse to show off or be vulgar about money and materialism.

Home made music, home made art and home made culture. I want to bring back trams and the horse.