Drugstore Cowboy. Jamiroquai's Jason Kay rolls another spliff -his second "big fatty"- and introduces himself : "My name is Bong...

James Bong." The hip and tripping Space Cowboy of his youth is back; he's skinned up, chilled out and ready to face the music industry...

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'Space Cowboy' came from being mashed, and dawdling around the house one day, humming a tune.

It's the feeling that it carries with it, that's what I wanted to get across. I just remember a really nice day on Hampstead Heath.

There were a lot of people sat there, we had a game of football and a few spliffs and it was good.

The Space Cowboy is that vibe you can find within yourself, where you go: 'Oh yeah,' and you open out a bit.

I like the idea of a Space Cowboy alter ego. He's psychedelic. He's a character. He's a representation of times earlier,

before I was doing music, when I was off my face and tripping, funked out in some hat and getting down.

I was at my peak. I was in my late teens and I was on it, I was just on it. It was like my little training ground.

 

It's different for every person. You can over do it. Every time somebody said: 'Come on, do another pill,' I'd say: 'No, it's alright man,

I'm quite happy chugging along as I am.' You know, because I was saving myself. All this tripping and E-ing is all great fun,

but I just see it as a close-up of how wicked life is. Life can be that wicked all the time. Like a woman I heard at Glastonbury; she said:

'We can be like this all the time.' But at some stage you need to learn how to engineer those feelings when you're real.

All those things that you get tripping, all that purity, you can have that through your natural person, your natural vibe.

I needed to go through that period. There are people who ride through, who say: 'I am going to fucking well do what I said I was going

to do when I was high,' and stuff. I am one of those people. There are others who give up on their ideas when reality sets in.

E has that side to it. Perhaps that's the scam. It's all part of a very slow process of conditioning. The government almost lets this stuff go on, so that minds are dulled and people lose their aspirations. All they care about is the 'club lifestyle'. But, then, what else is on offer?

Slowly the screws are being turned with things like the Criminal Justice Bill, more taxes being pulled out of thin air.

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I went through a time I was dealing and living on the street. I don't think I gave a shit about Space Cowboys when I was living in my hut.

Or Cowgirls. I was skint. I didn't give a shit. My mates were bringing me bananas and oranges in the morning. It was a hard life out there.

This was part of a period, spread throughout a few years, of generale decline. So the Space Cowboy isn't about real life.

It's a fantasy, really. I just thought, wouldn't it be nice to go on Top Of The Pops and shout 'Cheeba, Cheeba'?

Then we'd all be laughing, wouldn't we? We'd be halfway to being able to carry a 16th in our pocket.

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It should be legalised, of course. Absolutely. Tax it, do what you like, but we want to be able to smoke it as and when we like.

Except, of course, while operating farm machinery. I am campaigning by smoking it. I've just had two big fatties for the bloody photo shoot.

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I don't think all drugs should be legalised. It's not going to work. The whole point is that we should be able to improve the

quality of people's lives by, one small example, letting them smoke a spliff when they get home at night. Why not?

If people were legally allowed to learn how to smoke a joint, then that would be a spiritual victory.

And just by improving the quality of people's lives, they won't need those other drugs, will they?

The only reason people are taking these things is to run away, and there's so much beauty in life and so many positive things to do.

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I'm a free person. I don't want to be told what to do. I can't handle it. This year has definitely been the hardest thing I've been through.

People have been blurting about second-album syndrome and suddenly you realise that your standing in the graveyard of a million bands.

I started having paranoia attacks. I woke up one day, sat up and blurted out: 'The vocal on 'Just Another Story' is too loud!'

I was tired. I still am. I haven't had a holiday or anything. These Nazis tell me to start again. Things build up.

That's what I'm going through. It's a horrible thing when you're portrayed as someone who is a Jack-the-lad. I suppose I am an angst person.

I think I'm just a bit forward and passionate about things, so I just let off. Why not? Who cares? Smoking helps me to cope with that.

I don't pour myself a G&T at the end of a hard day's work, I smoke a joint.