Stuart Braithwaite - Mogwai's mouthpiece, figurehead for alcoholic radicals everywhere and, as organiser of April's All Tomorrow's Parties festival, curator of underground cool.

Why do you think bands have become more militant in recent months?

A lot of bands are just getting tired of mainstream rock music. After Nirvana, there was a feeling that things were about to change. But we've still got the same corporate mentality and sexism and nastiness as there's always been, except people are now doing it in chequered shirts rather than spandex.

Have you ever been on a demo or in a riot?

No. I'm a bit of a shite-bag to be honest. I can moa about the death of culture, but I wouldn't want a brick to hit me. I loved watching the riots in Seattle though - they had all the aesthetic qualities of Robocop.

Does being Scottish increase your sense of radicalism?

Growing up in Scotland in the '80s made yo very bitter about the political system, because there were hardly any Tory voters but we were still stuck with Thatcher for all those years. Lot's of my pals' parents didn't have jobs because of her. My folks are law-abiding people, but they wouldn't pay the poll tax when it was introduced here. I think they still haven't paid it actually. At the moment Scotland's good because they're going to pay students' tuition fees, which they won't do in England. But then you can't learn about homosexuality here... What can you do?

Is there any sense that the current anti-corporate movement is just a fashion?

What, you mean integrity as the new flippancy? I think it can only be a healthy thing, as long as it's not totally humourless. That's why we've always showed people that we're not art-rock bores. But I was watching Sigur Ros on telly the other day and they were using all these projections of mountains and rivers and my heart sank. It was like What have we done? This is only two chords away from Lord Of The Rings.

Who is THE MAN today?

Bill Gates, definitely. And it's scary how much control Sony has over our media and culture, though I'm not sure Nicky Wire would be pleased to hear me saying that.

Were your 'Blur: Are Shite' T-shirts intended as a radical statement?

When we first started hating Blur was one of the main reasons we made music. We imagined gaffa-taping them to a chair and playing our music to them. But it's more comedy now - we never seriously thought that we'd ever end up in the same room as them. Our targets have moved up over the years, we can't be bothered slagging off dweeb indie bands any more. Anyway, I hate The Rolling Stones much more than Blur, they're the single most overrated piece of shit ever. And a lot of mainstream culture is much worse than Blur, especially the stuff on TV. The Priorymakes me physically sick, especially the racism it displays against all countries apart from England. That makes me more angry than 'Parklife' these days.