Quotes: Religion

"The guys that I used to always love on downtown LA - Fifth and Main - with the briefcase with the speaker in it and the crummy little amplifier in it, going back and forth on a little wire screaming about the end of the world. I used to just stop and listen to those guys. Oh! To keep a crowd on a corner, now that, that is where you cut your teeth as a public speaker, is on a busy corner at like 5:00 on a Friday afternoon, downtown Los Angeles...and you're talking about Jesus. Now...Those were thrilling moments for me. I guess, umm, if you can make somebody wanna stop and listen, you can pretty much tell them anything, at least for the period of time it takes you to tell them, and then they're going to move on."

JH (1979): Are you religious? TW: "Er... I don't know. Hahaha. Nobody's ever asked me that before. Why did you ask me that?" JH: Because nobody's ever asked you that before and I'm curious? TW: "I don't know. The only trouble with going to Heaven is that I'm scared that there's no nightclubs up there. I think I'd rather go down there. I'm sure all my friends are down there. All my heroes." JH: Kerouac? TW: "Oh no, not Kerouac, he's up there... I think that Kerouac had a religious persecution mania. Like when Neal (Cassady) died Kerouac wouldn't admit that he'd gone. People would come round his house, and he'd say things like 'Oh no, no, we can't go anywhere today, Cassady's coming over'." (Source: "The Neon Dreams Of Tom Waits". "New Musical Express" magazine. John Hamblett. London. May 12, 1979)

Q (1981): That line (there ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk) about god is great. TW: "The line was just...I was just sitting on the toilet, and there was this spider web in the corner, and I lit a match and a cigarette, and I held the match up to the spider and the spider started crawling up the web. So I got the match closer. I opened up a can of beer, drank the beer, tried to decide whether I should burn the spider off his web or let him go on his way... "I figured there must be somebody like that up there: has a coupla cocktails every now and then and there's trouble on Times Square." Q: Is that your last word on religion? TW: "There's...these evangelists in the States like stand-up comics. They have the same kind of delivery. Actually advertise that they can heal the sick, raise the dead. It's just an epidemic, it's big business. Thousands and thousands come to see them and bring them their crippled children and their blind grandmother and their dead dog. And stand in front of this guy in a 700 dollar suit..." (Source: "Tom Waits: The Beat Buff Speed Poet Home Booze Hayseed" New Musical Express (UK). Ian Penman. March 28, 1981)

Tom Waits (1983): "I was stranded in Arizona on the route 66. It was freezing cold and I slept in a ditch. I pulled all these leaves all over on top of me and dug a hole and shoved my feet in this hole. It was about 20 below and no cars going by. Everything was closed. When I woke up in the morning there was a Pentecostal church right over the road. I walked over there with leaves in my hair and sand on the side of my face. This woman named Mrs. Anderson came. It was like New Years Eve... Yeah, it was New Year's Eve. She said: "We're having services here and you are welcome to join us." So I sat at the back pew in this tiny little church. And this mutant rock'n'roll band got up and started playing these old hymns in such a broken sort of way. They were preaching, and every time they said something about the devil or evil or going down the wrong path she gestured in the back of the church to me. And everyone would turn around and look and shake their heads and then turn back to the preacher. It gave me a complex that I grew up with. On Sunday evening they have these religious programs where the preachers they are all bankers. They get on with these firering glasses and 700 $ suits. Shake their finger at America. So this [Down, down, down ]is kind of my own little opportunity at the lectern." (Source: "Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones". Island Promo interview. 1983)

Tom Waits (1983): " It [Dave the Butcher] was originally inspired by a gentleman who did tremendous amounts of religious things in his house and worked at a slaughter house. I was trying to imagine what was going in his head while he cut up load of pork loin and got completely out of his mind with a meat cleaver. I don't think it's going to get a lot of airplay. Unless we put a nice vocal on it." (Source: "Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones". Island Promo interview. 1983)

Tom Waits (1985): "I think a lot of that comes from being in New York, everything is heightened, you're looking through that into this, beyond this into that. You get picked up by a Chinese cab driver in the Jewish district, go to a Spanish restaurant where you listen to a Japanese tango band and eat Brazilian food. It's all blended. New York's been settled by people that are separate in a way. They retain their own culture, its rules, religions and customs. You know when you pass over the border from one into the other." (Source: "Hard rain". New Musical Express: Gavin Martin. October 19 1985)

Q (1985) "Did you record others that didn't make it on the record? TW: Yeah, I had about 25 all together. There's a religious song that didn't get on the album. It's called "Bethlehem, PA". It's about a guy named Bob Christ. There were a couple of others." (Source: "Tom Waits for no man". Spin Magazine: Glenn O'Brien. November 1985)

Tom Waits (1985): "... you really have to watch your musical diet, especially when you're trying to write something. A couple of years ago on my wife's birthday we heard a song called "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet". and it stayed in my head for so long." (Source: "Tom Waits for no man". Spin Magazine: Glenn O'Brien. November 1985)

Tom Waits (1987): "Anyway, this is really a great story [Ironweed]. It's kind of a fable. Or more like a parable, actually. Like a Biblical story, almost --- one man's redemption and baptism and all that. Mmm-hmm. RR: So they're looking for a Q&A to send out. TW: Yeah, something to send out with the record." (Source: "From the set of Ironweed, Tom Waits talks with Rip Rense". New York Post: Rip Rense. late 1987)

Tom Waits (1987): "Let's face it, all of what we know to be religious holidays fall on what were pagan ritual celebrations. I don't want to get out of my area here, but Christianity clearly is like Budweiser: They came in, saw what the natives were doing, and said, "We're gonna let you guys do the little thing with the drums every year at the same time. You're working for Bud now. Don't change a thing. The words are gonna be a little different, but you'll get used to that. We're gonna have to get you some kind of slacks though, and a sports jacket. Can't wear the loinclothes anymore. These are fine, they're more comfortable." I don't want to oversimplify. I do believe very much in Billy Graham and all the real giants... They're like bankers. They understand the demographics, and they feel the country like a giant grid, or a video game. Same way politicians do. But even magic tricks were originally designed to get people to understand the magic of the spirit. Turning wine into water: It's the old shell game." (Source: "Tom Waits Is Flying Upside Down (On Purpose)". Musician, Mark Rowland. October 1987)

Q (1987): Where is heaven? TW: "God sits in a boat on the surface of the water, and we're all like fish. When you die, you float to the surface like a dead carp. The Big Guy hauls you in the boat. God's a little short guy, you know, he started in the mailroom and worked his way up. He invested well ." (Source: "MTV's The Cutting Edge 'Limo Interview" The Best of the Cutting Edge, Volume II. VHS Rhino (I.R.S.) RNVD 2402 Date: 1987)

Tom Waits (1992): "My mom heard the title (Bone Machine) and hated the title. She said it sounds so degrading. Sounds like something hellish or devilish. She also said, "There's nothing the devil hates more than a singing Christian." (Source: Telerama Interview (French promo CD). Date: September 9, 1992)

Tom Waits (1992): "Religion. I don't know what it is. You believe in things . When you're a kid you believe in the tooth fairy and Halloween and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and slowly you realize it doesn't exist. I shouldn't say that, cause if my kids read this they're gonna say, "Oh, Jesus, dad, what do you mean? Santa Claus?" I have to keep things alive for my kids so that they believe in them. It's a big question. You can't really cover it. Unless you want to get into a discussion about it. You're asking me how I feel about religion. I don't know. That's really the answer. Maybe there is a big guy sitting off somewhere in a cave with horns on his head and one big eye in the middle of his forehead and a fishing pole or a tennis racquet. Who knows?" (Source: Telerama Interview (French promo CD). Date: September 9, 1992)

Tom Waits (1992): "You didn't hear it, but I have this songs called "All Stripped Down"-- kind of half-gospel, half-love song. "I want you all stripped down," but it's also about Jesus: "Can't get into heaven unless you're all stripped down." That type of thing. We recorded it at home. I have this tape recorder at home that I love so much." (Source: "Tom Waits at work in the fields of song ". Reflex nr. 28: Peter Orr. October 6, 1992)

Tom Waits (1992): "Umm...Revelations. It's all in Revelations. It's a heavy chapter. The "Earth Died Screaming" is a warning I guess, It's one of those songs... I haven't written a song like that really before. Like that, what I mean is kind of a, it has a certain, it is a warning... ha... like the end is near. The guys that I used to always love on downtown LA - Fifth and Main - with the briefcase with the speaker in it and the crummy little amplifier in it, going back and forth on a little wire screaming about the end of the world. I used to just stop and listen to those guys. Oh! To keep a crowd on a corner, now that, that is where you cut your teeth as a public speaker, is on a busy corner at like 5:00 on a Friday afternoon, downtown Los Angeles...and you're talking about Jesus. Now...Those were thrilling moments for me. I guess, umm, if you can make somebody wanna stop and listen, you can pretty much tell them anything, at least for the period of time it takes you to tell them, and then they're going to move on. And a record is really like that..." (Source: Bone Machine Operator's Manual. Date: November 30, 1992)

Q (1992): I notice Biblical references on the album (Bone Machine). TW: "There's a little Revelations mixed in there. A little Biblical material --- new area for me. The Bible is a new world for me." Q: Been thumbing through it? TW: "Yeah, but only when I'm looking for something. And I remembered that Revelations is particularly dramatic. And there are a lot of turkey vultures around here, where we're living. I watch the way they work the room. You see like seven fenceposts, and they've all got one. They're all staring at a rabbit in the middle of the road, and they're waiting for the cars to slow down or stop. And they always get the eyes first. It's like a little hors d' oeuvre. If you go lay out under a tree for a half hour, they'll start circling. Word gets out. They start flying in." (Source: " Waits in wonderland". Image: Rip Rense. December 13 1992. / Source: Island Bone Machine press kit (Island Records, Inc.). Rip Rense. Date: Late 1992)

Q (1993): On that song "The Earth Died Screaming," do you think the earth is dying and we're just living in our own little dreams and ignoring it? TW: I guess, but I think the world is going to be here a whole lot longer after we're gone. I'm just waiting for the whole world to open up and swallow us all in, scrape us all off its back. I think the world is a living organism. When you stick a shovel in the ground, have you ever heard the earth go "Uhhgm?" And we're living on the decomposed remains of our ancestors, both animal, mineral and vegetable. So it is a living thing. I don't think it's going to die screaming, I think we're going to die screaming, in the swamp of time." (Source: "Tom Waits". Thrasher Magazine: Brian Brannon. February, 1993)

Q (1992): What spooks you? Are you superstitious or believe in ghosts? TW: "Yeah, I'm superstitious. Well, I think that religion and politics and the Judeo Christian ethic have pretty much annihilated superstition and replaced it with science and all that...but I'm very superstitious. You know, that red heads cause typhoons and things like that." (Source: "What Do You Say To Tom Waits?" The Village Noize, by Bill Dolan. Date: Issue 14, 1993)

Q (1993): "What was it like growing up? Did you have a strict religious background? TW: "Yeah. Had to go to church every Sunday. Wore a tie that cut off the circulation to my head. Then I discovered donuts, cigarettes and coffee when I was fourteen, and that was it for church. My mom said, "Don't forget that there's nothing the devil hates more than a singing Christian." (Source: "What Do You Say To Tom Waits?" The Village Noize, by Bill Dolan. Date: Issue 14, 1993)

Tom Waits (1993): "I was so moved when I first heard it (Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet). A similar thing happened when I first heard the song cause it was my wife's birthday and it was real late and everyone had left and there were only a few people sitting around with the balloons and the confetti all around and some people nodding out in the corner and the radio was on and all of a sudden this song kind of drifted into the room and it just put such a nice dust on everything. It kind of became the theme song of her birthday. Just the light in the room and the balloons and this old man's voice. It seemed a perfect score for the evening and I taped it and then I played it hundreds of times in the car and then I found myself singing it as well - to myself when I was out. There's something about it that's so naive and something that rarely happens when you're recording in a formal environment. There was some quality that it had. Also the ambience of where it was recorded cause it was recorded outdoors. Most recordings are made indoors so I noticed that as well. And I've kept it right up there with my favourite songs for a long time so this was really great for me to be able to sing along with the old man." (Source: BBC Radio: Johnnie Walker Interview. Date: London. September 11, 1993)

JJ (1993): Do you think there are aliens or life forms from other planets or other solar systems, other galaxies that have visited earth or at least surveilled it? What do you think about UFOs and aliens and stuff? TW: No, I believe there is intelligent life, but we are the ones who define what intelligence is, so I'm sure it would fall outside of our intelligence or ability to perceive it, which leads me to believe that they may be here among us and we are unable to see them, or understand that they're here. So y'kno, where technology is now as far as tracking other life forms, I don't know." (Source: "Straight No Chaser" Jim Jarmusch. October 1993)

Tom Waits (1993): "On earth, we never acknowledge that they [aliens] exist because it doesn't fit into our beliefs about the creation of the universe. God made the earth in seven days, then he rested. The idea that there would be creatures out there. The government is apparently keeping creatures they found, and in top secret bunkers in New Mexico, never to be viewed by the public. I believe that." (Source: "Straight No Chaser" Jim Jarmusch. October 1993)

Tom Waits (1993): "I guess we [Waits & Richards] maybe wrote enough for a record, but everything didn't get finished, so -- There was one called "Good Dogwood", about the carpenter that made the cross that Jesus hung on. (Sings:) "Made the other two out of pretty good pine, they all seemed to be doing just fine, but I hung my lord on good dogwood, huh! (40 ton)...And I made my house myself, and I know he likes the workmanship 'cause he's a carpenter himself, and I made the other two out of pretty good pine, they all seemed to be doing just fine, but I hung my lord on good dogwood." Dogwood is what the cross was made out of. And they say after Jesus went up to heaven that the blossoms on the dogwood developed a red cross in the bloom, and you can see it in the dogwood blossom. And that wasn't until after He had risen. So, uh, that was a good one." (Source: "Straight No Chaser" Jim Jarmusch. October 1993)

JJ (1993): There's a lot of strange religious imagery in your house. But on a kind of grotesque level. TW: Yeah, "The Earth Died Screaming" was an attempt at some of that. "Rudy's on the midway, Jacob's in the hole," that's all from the Book of Rudy, which is one of the lost books of the Bible, the Book of Rudy. JJ: I'm not familiar with the Book of Rudy. TW: No, it's the uh, it's still being held in a library in Russia. Give 'em back, give 'em back!" (Source: "Straight No Chaser" Jim Jarmusch. October 1993)

Q (1992/ 1998): Are you a particularly religious person? TW: No, I wouldn't say- No, I'm not religious. Brought up religious at all? TW: Oh, I had church when I was a kid, yeah. My mom heard the title of the album and she didn't like it. Bone Machine. She says, "Why must we always degrade?". She says, "Remember, the devil hates nothing more than a singing Christian." So.. I went to church when I was a kid, and one Sunday morning, I finally decided I wasn't gonna go any more. So, I stopped. I dunno what's out there or up there, or... Little office, maybe a little office, like when your car gets towed in New York and you have to go down to Pier 74, and it's like four in the morning and there's a plexiglass shield, it's like three inches thick with bullet holes in it and an old woman with bifocals, sitting there at a typewriter, and you realize that your car... is... You can see it, along, y'know, chain-ganged to hundreds of other cars over there, and your car looks ashamed and embarrassed. And you realize she, she's got the whole... She's got your destiny in her hands. So it's probably something like that. I mean, after you die. People think it's gonna be simple, but, I mean, please. It's gonna be an organizational nightmare after you die. All these spirits, who-where-wha-whe, you know, what did you do? And where's- Do you have your number? It's gonna be hell. So. You're gonna have to be really.. And to be able to find somebody after you've died is really gonna be hard, cause there gonna be people that can't identify their loved ones cause they're just little lights blinking. It's gonna be rough. So... [sighs] " (Source: "Morning becomes Eclectic ". KCRW radio Interview: Chris Douridas. Rebroadcast January 2 1998. Original broadcast 1992?)

Tom Waits (1993): "On Sundays, we'd always visit Uncle Robert, who was the organist at a methodist church in La Verne, California. Uncle Robert had a pipe organ in his house that went right through the roof. When he would play he would smear all the notes together like hot melted crayons and the whole house would shake." (Source: "Tom Foolery - Swapping stories with inimitable Tom Waits". Buzz Magazine: May 1993)

Tom Waits (1999): "My father-in-law was trying to get me interested in this business venture---these things called Testamints. They're these little lozenges with little crosses on them. If you're on the road, or something, and you can't worship in the way you're accustomed to, or it's during the week, you can have one of these little testamints, and it kind of gets you right in touch with your higher power. RR: Body of Christ? TW: Body of Christ. Exactly. So we just kind of took it a step further. You got your Testamints. What about your Chocolate Jesus? Melts in your mouth, not your hand. It is kind of direct. Drink this in remembrance of me. Someone might think it's blasphemous, but it's actually kind of a grassroots spirituality. RR: To say nothing of the fact that communion wafers don't taste nearly as good as chocolate. TW: They don't, really. I think they ought to send the whole thing up to Flavor Management. Why those wafers? You can go through the whole seasonal thing, where you have the clove, and apple in the autumn - communion wafers with those autumn flavors: cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger. You'd bring a lot more people in. You might bring a lot more people back who've left the church." (Source: "A Q&A about Mule Variations". MSO: Rip Rense. January (?) 1999)

Tom Waits (1999): "My dad taught Spanish all his life, so we went down to Mexico. Used to go down there to get my haircut a lot. And that's when I started to develop this opinion that there was something Christ-like about beggars. See a guy with no legs on a skateboard, mud streets, dogs, church bells going... I'd say, yeah, these experiences are still with me at some level." (Source: "Mojo interview with Tom Waits ". Mojo: Barney Hoskyns. April 1999)

Tom Waits (1999): "My father-in-law has been trying to get me involved in this other business. He's got these little lozenges that come in different flavours and they have a cross on one side and a Bible passage on the other. He calls them 'testamints.' The idea is that if you can't make the church service, you meditate on the testamint passage, then pop it in your mouth. We took the idea one step further with Chocolate Jesus." (Source: "Wily Tom Waits breakthrough". Now On: Tim Perlich. April 22-28, 1999)

Tom Waits (1999): "A couple of days ago a man choked to death on a pocket Bible. It was a 287-page Bible. He felt like he was full of the devil and he wanted to get that Bible down in there. And he choked to death. What folks are up to. Thank God there's a newspaper, or we wouldn't know what any of us are up to!" (Source: "Holding On: A Conversation with Tom Waits". Newsweek: Karin Schoemer. March 23, 1999)

Q (2002): You've been singing a song about god being away on business. Why is he away? TW: I don't know, it's hard to say. It's song-logic, you know. I don't know. Perhaps he's away indefinitely. Perhaps he was never here. You know, there are two different schools of thought on that I guess. Q: And you called his office and got a message? TW: (laughs) Yeah, well no. It's just eh, one of those things you say in order to explain the way that you feel in metaphor. I guess eh. It feels sometimes in the world that God is away on business and he's not coming back. (Source: Anti Electronic Press Kit - "We're All Mad Here - A Conversation With Tom Waits": Music industry promo. (P) & � 2002 Epitaph/ Anti Inc)

Tom Waits (2002): "I had some good things that happened to me hitchhiking, because I did wind up on a New Year's Eve in front of a Pentecostal church and an old woman named Mrs. Anderson came out. We were stuck in a town, with like 7 people in this town and trying to get out you know? And my buddy and I were out there for hours and hours and hours getting colder and colder and it was getting darker and darker. Finally she came over and she says: "Come on in the church here. It's warm and there's music and you can sit in the back row." And then we did and eh... They were singing and you know they had a tambourine an electric guitar and a drummer. They were talking in tongues and then they kept gesturing to me and my friend Sam (Jones): "These are our wayfaring strangers here." So we felt kinda important. And they took op a collection, they gave us some money, bought us a hotel room and a meal. We got up the next morning, then we hit the first ride at 7 in the morning and then we were gone. It was really nice, I still remember all that and it gave me a good feeling about traveling." (Source: Fresh Air interview with Tom Waits: "Fresh Air with Terry Gross", produced in Philadelphia by WHYY. Date: show aired May 21, 2002)

Q (2004): When pressed about spiritual and Christian themes that sometimes appear on his records he first admitted to having "a lot of preachers in the family" but then demurred, "With the God stuff I don't know. Everybody ponders it. I don't know what's out there any more than anyone else, cause no one's really come back to tell me. I don't know if I'm on a conveyer belt or if I'm on the tongue of a very angry animal about to be snapped back into his mouth. I think everyone believes in something; even people who don't believe in anything believe that." (Source: Thrasher Interview With Tom Waits Thrasher Magazine (USA), by Eben Sterling. November 1, 2004)

RG (2004): There's a lot of talk in your songs about God and the devil, sin and redemption. What are your thoughts about religion? Tom Waits: "I don't know. I think the world is at war over this with Bush talking about crusades and whatnot. The things that fall out of his month are just... obscene. I don't know what to say abort religion. It's not really my area." RG: But a lot of your characters think about the world in religious ways. Tom Waits: "I guess I think about it through them. That's my way of thinking about it. It's like the joke about the guy who goes to hell and they show him all these different rooms. In the first one everyone's on fire and screaming. "Nah, nah," he says. "You got anything else?" They show him another room and everyone is being stabbed by swords going at all angles through their bodies. "Nah, nah, nah," he says. The third room is a lot of guys standing around up to their waists in crap. They're drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes ... 'This looks good," he says. "This is the room for me." And the devil goes, "Fine. Go get your coffee, get your cigarette and take your position." And then the devil gets on the microphone and he yells, "Coffee break's over. Everyone back on your heads." Maybe that's hell. Maybe there are more hellish places on earth. I think it's aII right here. RG: It seems like your philosophy has got bleaker over the years. I'm thinking about songs like Misery Is the River Of The World or We're All Gonna Be Just Dirt In The Ground. Tom Waits: "Gee, I don't know. There are people who are being more afraid of being seen with an entertainment magazine than are afraid of the bomb, and people who are too scared of dying to leave their apartments. All you've got is your particular view from your bunker. I have a bleak view but I also believe in the mercy of the world so I weigh them both." RG: Did you say "mercy of the world" or "mercy of the Lord"? Tom Waits: "World. But maybe the world is the Lord. And we're God's eyeball. Hell, I don't know I need another cup of coffee [He comes back with a refill] I think you're born after you die. You go through a birth canal and you're born into another manifestation. Everything was alive once, right? Like Buckminster Fuller said, "Fire is nothing more than the sun unwinding itself from the wood." So perhaps we will be fire some day because the sun is in us waiting to be released. I don't know what the world is. Your interpretation is just as valid as mine. And right now I gotta make tracks and get on down the road." (Source: "Coffee With Tom Waits", Zembla magazine - Issue 7, by Richard Grant. December, 2004)

NS (2005): When you write a song like "Down In The Hole", or you know, any of the songs that involved you know Christianity imagery, are you in a sacred mood with that? I mean, are you a believer, are you a believer in Jesus? TW: Gee I don't know. Eh yeah eh (laughs). Yeah, I don't go to church on Sunday. But I eh, you know I'd say I'm a spiritual person." (Source: "Cool Ivories", American Routes radio show, by Nick Spitzer. February 16-22, 2002)

WORD (2006): There have always been a lot of religious allusions in your records, both musical and lyrical, of a salvation army band, revival tent variety On this record you've got a traditional gospel song, Lord I've Been Changed, and a gospel song you've written yourself, Down There By The Train. Is it the music you love or the sentiment? Tom Waits: "I don't know.. I always thought religion should be more visceral and that you should get beat up a little by it, you know? I was hitchhiking through Arizona, it was New Year's Eve and I got stuck in a little town called Stanfield, Arizona. You think Arizona's hot - in January it's 10 below zero - and I'm not getting any rides. I'm about 17. And an old woman named Mrs Anderson comes out to the sidewalk and I'm with my good buddy Sam, and she says, "It's getting a little cold, it's getting a little dark, it's New Year's Eve, come in the church". And they sat us down in the back of the church, and it was all Pentecostal. They had a band up there; two Mexican guys and a black drummer and an old guy on the guitar - very weird - and a boy about seven playing piano. And they did this talking in tongues. I had never experienced anything like this before, so as far as I was concerned it was like scat singing; they were just going crazy. We were in the back, starting to laugh because it was unusual, and we were young and naive. And at the end of the service they took up an offering and they gave all of the money to us. They said, "We want to honour our wayfaring strangers, our travellers in the back who've come a long way to be with us tonight". They gave us a basket of money, and we bought a motel that night, warm with a TV, trucks out the back. And we got up next morning, and we hit a ride and went all the way to California. That was probably the most pivotal religious experience I've had. If I was going to join a church, I'd join that church." (Source: "My Wild Years And The Woman That Saved My Life", Word magazine (UK), November 9, 2006. By Mick Brown)

Further reading: Interviews (complete transcripts)