“Los Angeles produced the Beach Boys. Dusseldorf produced Kraftwerk. Ne...” — Bernard Sumner Quote

Los Angeles produced the Beach Boys. Dusseldorf produced Kraftwerk. New York produced Chic. Manchester produced Joy Division.

If you're driving around or at home with the stereo blasting pure dance track, it gets boring within about 15 minutes. It doesn't work at home like it does in a nightclub. You've got no atmosphere.

I'm not interested in the past or in talking about myself.

If you have a bereavement in your family, it's a terrible, terrible thing. But, you know, time passes. It's part of the cycle. It doesn't hurt so much.

Joy Division sounded like Manchester: cold, sparse and, at times, bleak.

Now that I live in Los Angeles, if I meet somebody from Detroit, it's like there's this brother- or sisterhood, where we're real folks.

I think Los Angeles is often portrayed as kind of a petri dish, where bad decisions start and then spread to the rest of the world. I don't see it that way. I feel Los Angeles is a place of almost primal struggle and survival. It's not a city that embraces its inhabitants.

I'd never stop traveling, and I love bringing my family along with me. My children have points of reference everywhere, friends from Milan to Los Angeles. I think it's really fun for them.

I attended private Catholic schools in Paris and Los Angeles through high school.