Midway through a long conversation - I ask him how old he is.

Howard says: "I'm not going to tell you."

Why not? It can't be vanity can it?

"Vanity?" says Howard. "No - vanity doesn't come into it. I just don't want to get it wrong - that's all."

Don't you know how old you are?

"I do know" says Howard"somewhere right inside me".

Well - how about telling us something about your background? University? Art College?

"No - never been to an art college".

Did you leave school early? What sort of school did you go to?

Howard doesn't answer. Or at any rate - one of his long pauses goes on to infinity.

I tell him that I'd hate to destroy his enigma by asking such questions - but I'm sure people would be interested in the answers.

Howard says: "Well - does that tell them something about me?"

It gives them a means of comparison. It shows that Howard Devoto didn't materialise from nowhere.

"Oh - I don't really want people to be interested in that kind of thing. I don't want to whet people's appetites - at all."

But - I persist - you're a public figure now.

"That's a bit shaky" says Howard.

At least tell us whether you're a middle class person or a working class person? Was Dad a lawyer or a brick layerlayer ?

Howard shakes his head - revolves his eyes - and flutters his long eyelashes.

"Oh - you're asking me all these questions. Oh - really - really."

I am sitting in the lobby of the Kensington Hilton Hotel in West London - very slowly sipping a half pint of lager that cost 5Op - when there is an explosion by the front door.

A small - but very active bolt of energy bursts into the room like a champagne cork popping from a bottle. It is Howard - making an ordinary entrance.

He bounds down a flight of stairs - dances into the hotel's bookstall - pirouettes among the books - finds nothing to interest him - and bounces out into the lobby again.

The reason for picking the Kensington Hilton is that they have a very good Japanese restaurant - and it seemed a good place for an interview as Howard aspires to be inscrutable (ha!).

In the event - Howard eats a bowl of peanuts provided with the lager and announces he is not hungry - anymore. Oh well

The obvious first question is how does Howard Devoto - a former punk - get away with singing intellectual lyrics and leading a progressive rock band?

"I think people have listened to our music a little bit and worked at it a little bit and are reasonably happy with it. There's no way that somebody in my position thinks of it in that sort of way. That's a very - uh - formal way of looking at it."

But Howard takes very formal decisions about his music. Magazine are very different to The Buzzcocks.

"Yeah" Howard concurs. "But that's got to do with the different musicians I'm working with. Like - getting involved with punk was a reaction against everything that was in the air at the time - so getting Magazine together was a reaction against punk."

Why were you reacting against punk?

"I don't like movements. I'm just perverse."

So - on those grounds - you abandoned something that was radical - and adopted something that was conservative? Is that right?

"No - I can't see how you can look at it that way. For me - it's just awkwardness. I mean - what was radical about doing what several hundred other people were doing - all of a sudden? It started off radical. But it - uh - stopped."

Did Howard feel that his individuality was being lost among all those punks?

"Oh - that precious commodity! Individuality! No - I was in no way embarrassed about it. I was just getting pissed off with it."

Because it was going nowhere?

"Yeah - apparently. It takes some time for my songs to worm their way into people - and there was no musical recognition for me at the time I left The Buzzcocks."

"I left more or less when 'Spiral Scratch' came out. Once that record came out people could hear it for themselves - and things got a little bit better. But it was done by then. I'd left. I don't regret it at all."

Did you have to suppress your ideas a bit in The Buzzcocks?

"No" says Howard. "I just didn't have very many. The main idea was just to step out on the stage. That was the big thing."

The Buzzcocks were Howard's first band. Before that - he just used to "whistle the occasional tune to myself."

I say that on the whole Howard's tunes are very difficult to whistle.

Howard - who is supposed to be answering the questions - asks: "Why's that?"

I suggest that perhaps he could tell me.

"Well - I think of my music as really very simple. There's nothing ornate about it. There's nothing superfluous about it. Every bit's serving a purpose."

"And then" he continues - as though running through the alphabet with a child. "It's a matter of the words and the music together."

"Often the final form is determined by the words. It becomes a matter of measurement. I need so much here. Does that work in that way? Okay - so we change that bit here - alter the colour of that bit - pull that in - push that out."

This Sounds a very academic - careful approach. Not quite the spontaneous flow of creative adrenalin as in the punk myths.

At this - Howard says: "Uuuuuuurgh". A sound not unlike the Mekon being sick.

"I dispute academic. But the thing with 'Real Life' is that we want that record to stand. When you're giving people a permanent piece of music - you want everything to go into it - so it's worth them living with it - whether they're one month listeners or for years."

"I don't think all music should be like that at all. But with what the album was about - a summing up of a series of moods - it did have to be worked on fairly carefully."

This explanation makes "Real Life" sound even more like old-fashioned progressive rock - and indeed Magazine have been compared to both Roxy Music and Genesis.

Howard doesn't think such comparisons have any significance. But I say that he does appear to favour a musical style rejected by his contemporaries.

"All that Sounds like is that somebody has listened to it - and thought: 'Hey - this could be successful music. How very outrageous of them'. That makes it all sound very measured - and I'm not just that good as a writer or musician to write measured things."

To get the full flavour of Howard Devoto's conversation - it's no good reading what he has to say at your normal speed. Put full stops after each word - and you'll g et something of the pace. On occasion - people sitting nearby hold entire conversations in the time it takes Howard to begin to answer a question. You can't deny that he does a lot of thinking.

Since it's difficult to whistle Howard's songs - or even sing them in the bath - I ask Howard if much of his appeal to the punters lies in his "intellectual mystique".

Howard promptly denies that he's an intellectual.

"That word means to me that you've got a certain academic approach to life. It means you go around making references to other people's work. You're very uuuuuuurrgh."

That Mekon vomiting noise again.

"You pull things apart - if you're an intellectual. And there's no way I'm into all that."

But - Howard - isn't one of the songs on your album called "My Tulpa"? I looked up the word "tulpa" in the Oxford Dictionary - and it's not there. A word that obscure must be intellectual.

Howard explains that he came across the word in some magazine somewhere.

"It's a thing that Tibetan monks make for themselves. It's like an adult's version of an imaginary childhood friend. Like - they make a spiritual companion that is sometimes in the image of their god or goddess and sometimes looks like themselves and sometimes can be seen by other people."

I subsequently wonder whether Tibetan monks hold tulpaware parties. But Howard is continuing with his explanation:

"I just used the idea as the sort of person you want to be or your better half or your worst half. You know - your image of yourself. As distinct from your real self."

Does the song apply to you?

"Yeah - it's pretty much about me. It's very hard to write honestly without writing about yourself. Or it gets very very difficult. You can get very phoney - if you're trying to be something else."

The idea of spiritual companions created by Tibetan monks seems a bit esoteric.

"Oh yes. But that's only the title of it. The song is more about trying to see yourself when you sit back in your chair and think: ah - what am I doing here - why am I acting like this? That's really all it was about."

For example - the problems of growing up - and becoming an adult?

"Oh no" says Howard. "I've done all that. I've passed all that with flying colours."

Well - what things are you writing about? Generally speaking - the themes on the album seem to be paranoia - persecution - depression - and the like.

"I wouldn't list them" says Howard. "I wouldn't do a thing like that."

In that case - what new insights do you think there are on the album?

"It's not my job to say that. All I can say is that I haven't really heard other people talking about the things that I'm talking about. Or at least in the same way."

Howard's on record as admiring the work of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed - and it's probable that he's aiming for the same league. But has he got the right background?

Part of the appeal of Iggy and Lou Reed is that they've gone through a lot of heavy experiences and that's reflected in their songs.

Has Howard done anything comparable up in Manchester?

"Like got myself wrecked - and dumped myself in the road - and got myself strung out on chemicals and things like that?"

Yes.

"I've done that in my own little way. Somewhat privately."

So you think what Iggy and Lou have to say about it is true?

"Yeah - I think they're people who deal with real experiences. They deal with their lives and they make sense to other people."

The range of experiences - though - would seem to be more limited in Manchester than it is in New York.

Howard says: "I think there are people in terraced houses in Blackburn - people in luxury flats in Knightsbridge - country cottages in Dorset - who go through hell every other week - Surely."

Has Howard ever "gone through hell"?

"I've had a taste or two of it - yeah. It's not necessarily anything to do with shooting up three tons of smack - or anything like that. It can be nothing to do with that. You can wake up in the morning and see through walls and see nothing."

"That's what the song 'Motorcade' on this album is essentially about. A man with all the power - all the assets anybody could ever desire."

A politician?

"It has happened to me. You can be living the most luxurious existence - and go through that. Alternatively - you can be the proverbial housewife at the sink - who's absolutely sick to death of doing the dishes again."

If Howard's saying that rich people and poor people experience life in the same sort of way - that seems to be a reason for not attempting to right injustices. Is he suggesting that changes doesn't benefit people?

"I'm not saying that as any statement or creed at all. You can look as desperately as you like for things to be committed to. People spend their lives doing that. They'll go to meetings - read books - listen to their friends - talk themselves. But - you know - it doesn't always work."

Is that a reason not to try? "No - not at all. All I'm talking about is what I see and what I have felt at times."

Does Howard feel any sense of injustice over people who can afford Rolls Royces? (No doubt he'll soon be in that class). Or anger over people who can afford to stay in the Kensington Hilton for a week?

"I can get offended by those things - yeah. Of course I can. I'm not saying we're all equal because we're all living in hell. Maybe it's the person who's the happiest who should pay the biggest price. It all depends on the scale of values you apply."

On that thought - the interview comes to an for the end. We ask for the bill lagers - and I go over and pay. Not because I'm necessarily happier than Howard - but there are no record company people around to provide lavish hospitality. Howard apparently feels it's more meaningful that way.

I ask him why it seems to be such a complicated business talking to him. Every interview he does seems to end up in the realms of ethics and social psychology. And that's true of his songs - too.

"A lot of people say I'm complicated" Howard admits. "But I can't understand that. I think I'm utterly transparent. And my song's are as close as you can possibly get to nakedness."

He's not smiling as he says that. But it was surely his first - and only - joke of the afternoon.

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