I saw them as the ultimate all-American band. To me, they reflected the American character in general—an almost childish innocent aggression…. I thought, ‘The Great Seal of the President of the United States’ would be perfect for the Ramones, with the eagle holding arrows—to symbolize strength and the aggression that would be used against whomever dares to attack us—and an olive branch, offered to those who want to be friendly. But we decided to change it a little bit. Instead of the olive branch, we had an apple tree branch, since the Ramones were American as apple pie. And since Johnny was such a baseball fanatic, we had the eagle hold a baseball bat instead of the [Great Seal]’s arrows.

The people, mainly,” he says without hesitation, “There’s a resilience here and a pitch-black humour that I love. Plus, it throws up mavericks. You only have to look at the history of pop music in this city, from the Human League and Cabaret Voltaire to Pulp and Arctic Monkeys. It’s like we’re proud to be out of step.