My new book is as radically demanding as Crass was 30 years ago – if it's not, then I've failed. I sort of feel the same fate for my books. PR: It's taken 30 years for what we were saying then to be taken more seriously.
JR: It's taken a long time for Crass to be understood, is that your fate? We have been getting praise from people who once spent most of their time deriding us and, suddenly, they're saying that we are important and a valuable voice, particularly in this hideous mess the country has been driven into by the coalition. We did it, and the response has been amazing – interestingly, not just from the new young punks on the scene but from academia and the media, which is totally new to us. I finally managed to get them out, despite all kinds of legal threats from people. PR: I battled to do the Crass reissues, and to get them released, because I believed in them. JR: There has been quite a bit of Crass activity recently, including the reissue of The Feeding of the 5000. To my mind the true battleground against capitalist ideology is the cultural one because I think it's from there that a sense of empowerment can grow. What I really believe is that it's not the politicians that change the world – it's people like Descartes and Nietzsche. At the time I promoted that idea with anarchistic thoughts and referring people to other anarchistic thinkers, but I have gently updated it to "no responsibility but to yourself".
Penny Rimbaud: Central to what we had to say was the notion that there is no authority but yourself. John Robb: What is it about what Crass stands for that has made them such a powerful rallying point, years later?
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