Q Icons - SUEDE

Q ICONS – SUEDE

You are now Icons. What's the most iconic thing you've done?

Brett Anderson: There is a presence to Suede - there is a way that we are, which is beyond just one event. It's 20 years of how we have behaved. [To Mat] What's the most iconic thing that you've ever done? Come on flailing here.

Mat Osman: I think the only thing we have done that you could say is iconic is that we have inspired a generation of other bands. That's I think of when I think of an icon - those bands that, when you were a kid, you aspired to and made you make music.

What's been the highlight of the day?

BA: It was nice to have a chat with Chrissie Hynde. The last time I saw her was on 11 September 2001 - we were in a studio with her watching the Twin Towers being destroyed.

Mat Osman: This was slightly more pleasant.

Robbie Williams stopped at your table on his way to collect his award. What did he say?

BA: He came up and apologised for slagging me off. There was a bit of a spat. I said boy bands were shit in the 1990s and he thought I was talking about him - which I wasn't. He came up and apologised and said it had been a tough week for him. He had the dignity to do that which was very sweet. There's no bad blood.

You came back with a great album and reminded people why they loved you in the first place. Are you the Take That of indie?

MO: It's not what I'd like to be remembered as, no.

Is Bernard Butler the Robbie of the band?

MO: [Sarcastically] I'm sure that is how he'd like to be remembered.

BA: I love that. You know him so well.

Writer John Niven presented you with your award. Did you recognise the industry excess outlined in his novel Kill Your Friends?

Neil Codling: I don't think Brett's read the bit in Kill Your Friends where he falls out of a Ramada Hotel toilet after headlining Reading.

MO: We were really lucky as we were on an indie label and John comes from that world of the major labels where money was being spunked up against the wall. In terms of drinking and drug taking, it was like that. But in terms of the monetary excess, we were on a tiny fucking indie label.

BA: I haven't read it. That's the only reason they [Mat and Neil] are here.

The Smiths were a huge influence on Suede. Have you read Morrissey's autobiography?

NC: He spends 145 pages talking about growing up in Manchester, 70 pages about The Smiths and about 50 pages talking about the [Mike Joyce] court case. Out of a 430-page book, most people were expecting a bit more on The Smiths.

What amazing secrets would you reveal in your autobiography?

BA: Most of it would be about Simon [Gilbert]. He is the most idiosyncratic member of the band. When we go into hotels, he changes rooms at least three times before he's happy.

Simon Gilbert: I hate hotel rooms.

BA: Sometimes he even changes hotels - not just hotel rooms.

SG: I'm a little bit of a fusspot.

BA: We're not losing the myth of being ponces here, are we?