The worst guys always have the best uniforms: the SS, the Confederacy, Napoleon. Then look at the winners - they always have the drab shit on

What's the weirdest animal you've ever ridden?

Giant stuffed anteater.

Do you have many stuffed animals?

I don't have any now.

What happened to the anteater?

His head kept coming off.

Do you believe in aliens?

Well, I saw a UFO so I have to, don't I. Four of us saw it, in Yorkshire. We stopped the car and got out to watch - it came across the horizon like a streak and stopped dead in mid-air, hovered there for half a minute and then went off at a right angle. It reached its original speed almost instantly. We were just made up to have seen it. So yes. I believe in aliens.

What's the most violent thing you've ever done?

Probably punching a guy out. I have punched people - not many, I must admit. I went to punch one guy in the chest but he ducked, so I got him right in the mouth. He went straight to the floor. I don't fight. It's pointless, because if you win it doesn't prove you're right, it just proves you were luckier.

Do you collect anything odd?

I collect Nazi memorabilia - daggers and swords and uniforms and things.

How many items do you have?

About 500. It's an interesting field.

What's the most expensive item in your collection?

A Damascus Steel Luftwaffe Sword.

How much did you pay for that?

That would be telling, but it was three months' rent.

Were any of them owned by anyone...

... Dastardly? I don't think so, no. I haven't got any from the top brass, as it were. Although I've got a few SS daggers, and you never know who was wearing them, do you.

When did you start collecting?

It would have been 1987. Somebody gave me a dagger and then about six months later, somebody gave me an iron cross and I was struck by the design of them. That's what I collect them for, the design, it's not the belief, obviously. If you look at the photographs of the British uniform of the time, they look like a bunch of provincial scoutmasters, for Christ's sake. The worst guys always have the best uniforms: the SS, the Confederacy, Napoleon. Then look at the winners - they always have the drab shit on.

I think you might have hit on something. Do you collect anything else?

I collect skulls. Obviously I can't collect real human ones. I have a real pig and a real dog though. All the others are facsimile human ones.

Have you ever heard voices in your head?

Only the ones after a gig - you know, the echo. I went out with a bird that did once. She escaped from Epsom mental hospital. She would come and visit me at the weekends. She was always fine with me until one time I came home and found her stacking all my shit in the middle of the room on the floor and about to set fire to it because the voices told her to.

Have you ever seen a dead body?

Yeah. A couple. I saw one in Lithuania. It was lying flat on its back by the side of the road. There was grass growing through it. That was weird. We drove past it. Who are you going to report it to in Lithuania? The guy looked very peaceful so we left him to it.

What's the biggest animal you've ever killed?

I've never killed a big animal, I'm afraid. I assisted in cutting the balls off my horse once, which I felt bad about for years.

How did you assist?

I held one of his legs. I saw the whole thing. They open up slits in the bag and pull them out and chop them up. I never felt right about that.

Did it make you feel queasy?

Not queasy exactly - guilty. Taking the balls off a male is about as bad as you can get, isn't it?

But he's a horse.

I know, but that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy it any more than I would.

That's one way of looking at it.

If someone did that to me, I would never let them get away. I would stalk them. I don't know why he didn't kill me. I couldn't look him in the eye after.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

I haven't seen one, but I heard one.

Tell me more Mr Kilmister...

There was a bunch of us up in a cottage on the Yorkshire moors. Something got hold of one of us upstairs. He was sleeping in two chairs. There was this piercing scream and he said, "Something's got hold of me!" and we went up and he was as white as a fucking sheet. He jumped clear of it and we ran downstairs. He was a very spiritual geezer so he wanted a séance to see who it was. And he said, "Spirit of the house, why me?" and all that. And the front door opened and slammed shut. The nearest neighbours were eight miles away and it wasn't the wind because the wind doesn't shut them again, right? We heard some footsteps go upstairs and stop in the corridor outside the room we were in, and then they went in the room opposite and that door slammed. As it slammed a girl started crying and she cried all night until about six in the morning. We were there two weeks and we never heard another thing.

We got the story from the locals. Apparently, there was a guy who lived there with his daughter, and his wife died having the daughter, so he brought her up on his own. Of course, he was overprotective, as a single parent often is, and she wanted to marry this farmer's son from down the valley, but her father thought he wasn't good enough for her so he forbade them from seeing each other. So they ran away and got married and he ran after her and brought her back and locked her in that room upstairs for 25 years. She died there. That's taking the piss.

What's the weirdest animal you've ever eaten?

I don't know. You never know what's in Japanese food, do you. There are all manner of strange sea creatures. Probably horse in France. Oh no, maybe reindeer in Finland. It was very good. It was a bit stringy but it was good. I had it with chips. Fucking reindeer and chips is a meal. You leave the antlers on the side of your plate.

Bestiality, coprophilia or necrophilia?

Probably necrophilia because they would be quieter.

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