On the early days: How did you come to get JS into the band? - The management thought we needed a second guitarist - a better guitarist than Robb, and John got the job and came and stayed with me. His first gig was the Reading Festival, although we did a warm-up in Wallsend as The Wildcats. We did Reading and then we did the British tour with John. I used to be reticent and quite reserved [about this time]. But I know exactly what happened and what was going on. I was a good looking kid and I sold the band. I was the blue-eyed boy. It is an arrogant thing to say but it's a matter of fact, you know?

On leaving the band: I went in October/November 1980 for whatever differences of opinion. There was a lot of pressure on the whole band because Def Leppard were heading off to the States. The record company felt that America was the way to go to earn your money as Def Leppard were demonstrating, although Joe Elliott nearly went [had to leave the band] as well. They had to send Joe Elliott for singing lessons and he came through in a big way with the help of Mutt Lange. I wasn't willing to fight for it because I was getting a bit sick of it at the time anyway. It had become a monster. We didn't start off to do anything really we were just a bunch of lads playing in a band to attract girls. All this thing happened around us all by accident [he means the NWOBHM] and then it became a machine. I wasn't really happy with it - I was quite miserable with it all.

On Spellbound: So they got Jon Deverill in to do the high harmony thing. But sadly what they did was alienate all the rock fans because they went from No.1 in all the metal charts in Europe to like, you know, biggest joke of all time "we hate you" within a year. I mean, Spellbound was fantastic, Crazy Nights was quite good. Spellbound was a marvellous album - it was John Sykes's writing. John was great, he was the star, fantastic, a rock god. Jon Deverill was a great singer, you know I'm not denying that at all. Fantastic. Spellbound was a fantastic album - I loved it, I mean it was really great. Crazy Nights was OK: it had a few tracks I quite liked. But when John left that was the end. I mean Robb and I wrote Wild Cat. John Sykes wrote Spellbound. I don't know who wrote the lyrics to be quite frank. I suspect Rocky had a hand in a lot of it. You can tell Jon Deverill's lyrics quite quickly. Mirror is definitely one of his. [After that] they started relying on outside writers. I mean, they alienated all the rock fans basically and went for the Radio 1 housewife, American radio market.

On Tyger Tyger, the band Jess put together with Robb in the mid-1980s: I bumped into Robb and he said "do you fancy doing something together?" But the thing is with Robb, he didn't want to tour. He went back to being a jeweller because he thought that was more important than being in band because that was where he was getting his money from, which is fair enough. We only finished one track - Straight as a Die and that appeared on the First Kill CD, a Tyger Tyger track. So I knocked it on the head. The rest of the album's there, sitting in a can somewhere. It's not finished - it'll never be finished, I doubt. It'll be in the garage - I've got a box of tapes. I'll have to go and have a look. But then Robb and I would have to agree to do something with it I guess. So do you speak with Robb? - No. I don't know what Robb Weir's doing. I don't know why he's calling himself the Tygers of Pan Tang. Who owns the name? - Michael Moorcock, I guess. [author of the novel Stormbringer from which the band's name was taken] So there's no legal problem with him using the name? - I don't know, I haven't looked into it. I'm a little disappointed. I certainly wasn't approached about it.

On the Tygers reunion at the 1999 Wacken concert in Germany: That was my baby. The idea was to have the Spellbound band. I was gonna get up at the end and do an encore. I approached John Sykes, but John had fallen out with the rest of the band when he left. Jon D wouldn't do it without Fred. Fred reckoned he couldn't play fast enough any more. So he wouldn't do it so Jon wouldn't do it. Sykesy didn't reply, as is his wont. So as far as I was aware Brian and Rocky were approached. Tom Noble told me nobody would play except Robb and that was it. I went back to Wacken and said "no deal" - it's only me and Robb, They said "well, you and Robb wrote Wild Cat and that's the favourite album in Europe anyway." So we did it thinking it was a one-off. But Robb being Robb thought the world wanted him back. So he went off calling himself the Tygers of Pan Tang and did an album called Mystical which was absolutely horrific. It knocked the band back a hundred years.

On the possibility of Tygers re-releases: I'm looking at releasing all the old albums again. I've got the rights back. They'll be out on Metal Nation - when I get round to doing it. I put them out on Edgy in 1997 and they sold very well. I worked very hard on that package.

On JS: John…he's a lovely character, a lovely fella. I love him like a brother but [said with a smile] he's still fucking annoying. It's the rock guitarist thing - he's not interested in other stuff, he just wants to play his guitars.

On the future: I'm not averse to doing a reunion. I'd love to get Brian and Rocky involved, Jon D and Fred. Robb would have to be in it. I've got no ego problem. Back in '99 I was happy to put the band first.

Thanks to Jess for making the time to meet up and talk!