There is such contrast between your movements and the intense subject matters you’re singing about. It seems like you’re dancing and revelling in the grimness of the songs.

I really enjoy that. That’s the point where I think ‘OK, I don’t think anyone else would be daring to do this right now.’ The thing I’ve always loved about watching John Lydon is the way he would revel in those moments where you’re like, ‘Fuck.’ You and I both know what I’m talking about. In the music is something really, really dark, so I’m not going to stand here and be really dark, I’m going to move.

Have you tried to hold up a mirror to the prevailing existential mood on this record? There’s quite a dystopian feel to the record.

There is. Have you ever flown to Tokyo? That jet lag is the definition of an existential crisis, every time. There was one night where I’d go to sleep, two hours later I’m absolutely wide awake and I just had these images… humans and rats changed places. A dream. And as I came out, I woke up with this really strong set of images of girls in tottering heels, but they’re actually rats and the human beings are in the drains. I had another one, these weird images of the city of London and all the skyscrapers are just shuffling along.

The dystopian thing is one part of it, yes, but for me, one of the big, prevailing things was a sense of anxiety. If you suffer from anxiety it manifests itself in unpredictable ways, some people have over-emotional reactions. [For] some people the roots of reality can just get pulled out, you don’t know what’s happening. Then eventually reality comes back. For some reason I thought a really good way of expressing anxiety creatively was in a dystopian environment. I had so many visual things going on at this point. Another one was where everybody was travelling to work but their bodies were telling them that they wouldn’t do it anymore. They were refusing to cooperate, so they were doing these involuntary movements.