Malcolm McLaren: Rotten had terrible shoulders. Round and flabby Irish shoulders. And his body was the shape of a pear. But in the clothes that we gave him he always looked wonderful. He was a wonderful mannequin for the clothes that Vivienne [Westwood] and I designed for him. He complained about them, of course. I sold a lot of trousers off the back of Johnny Rotten.

Steve Strange: I ran a very tight ship in terms of my door policy. I wanted creative-minded pioneers there who looked like a walking piece of art, not some drunken, beery lads. The best move I made was turning Mick Jagger away at the door. He was wearing trainers.

The filming was interrupted at one point by an old man walking his dog, looking for driftwood. [David] Mallet asked him if he wouldn’t mind moving, and pointed out Bowie sitting outside the catering van. ‘Do you know who this is’ he asked? Sharp as a tack, the old man responded with, ‘Of course I do. It’s some cunt in a clown suit.’ Sometime later, Bowie remembered, ‘That was a huge moment for me. It put me back in my place and made me realise, “Yes, I’m just a cunt in a clown suit.”’ [Fra innspillingen av «Ashes to Ashes»-videoen.]

Jon Savage: The Eurythmics made a couple of terrific pop records, and then they went all authentic and started making really shit records. As soon as those groups stopped making synth pop, they all turned to shit.