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Leader of the influential band The Pop Group, Mark Stewart is making his return with new solo album The Politics Of Envy on 26 March, boasting a host of collaborations including cult filmmaker Kenneth Anger, punk pioneer Richard Hell, Factory Floor, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and more. Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie appears on first single Autonomia, and the pair sat down to discuss the music and politics that have influenced their outlook as artists and their lives. Following Part I in which the pair spoke about their formative influences, Gillespie and Stewart chat about bending genres, political activism and Donna Summer...

Mark Stewart: Both of us try to crash different genres, you with people like Andrew Weatherall and David Holmes, and me with Sherwood and co. Recently, I was talking to Iggy Pop and he was saying that growing up he saw no different between Garage and Motown for example. What do you think?

Bobbie Gillespie: When I was a kid my mum always had the radio on in the morning as we were getting ready to go to school I'd hear Bowie, The Delphonices, T Rex, George McCray, Alice Cooper, The Stylistics, Bryan Ferry... it was all just great music to me. I didn't know what genres were, the music just put me in a great mood. I bought Pretty Vacant and I Feel Love on the same day in the summer of 1977. They blew my mind equally and now I think about it, I've spent the last twenty years trying to merge them together with Primal Scream.

Mark Stewart: I think across the world people are re-writing the rulebook...

Bobbie Gillespie: We were in South America recently and had a gig in Chile. First thing we see as we hit the outskirts of the city centre is a burned out police bus left beside a barricaded with some kids in their late teens behind it. Across the road from that was a huge building festooned in revolutionary banners and anti-globalist slogans. This was the main university in Santiago. For the last five months the students have been having sit-ins against tuition fees. I went down to the uni later on that night to have a look, all the railings were barricaded with chairs and desks from the classrooms. We went into a library that was in a tent and our eyes started to sting & water. There had been a riot there that morning and the police had used tear gas. There were still students in the streets and a feeling of defiance and camaraderie hung in the air, kind of how I imagine Paris in 1968 would have been. We had been in Argentina the day before and witnessed the centre of Buenos Aries reduced to a standstill by a demonstration of workers and community groups against government cuts in public spending. It was so inspirational to witness this defiance and see people en masse stand up for themselves. I just wish that people in Britain would get up off their knees. These bastards in power have an ideological agenda that they want to see through to the finish. As William Burroughs said "They want to steal the ground beneath the feet of your unborn children, forever".

Mark Stewart: One of the overriding concepts of this album, that you have guested on, [The Politics Of Envy] is how catalytic alchemical flames spread from generation to generation. Recently a filmmaker was making a documentary about me and trying to interview lots of people who say they've been inspired by me from Nick Cave, Bjork, Massive attack (who also guest on the album), Trent Reznor through to LCD... But it was crucial for me to pay homage to some of my gods, Kenneth Anger, Richard Hell and Lee Perry. I see it as a circular flame that constantly feeds itself and I am repeatedly inspired by new hybrids and mutations. The world is in a hyper state of change and I must reflect and add to it.

Bobby Gillespie: Your work has always been heavily political, when did you first become politicised? From the free poster that came with Y onwards you've always had great artwork - brutal & beautiful at the same time.

Mark Stewart: I've always cut up, juxtaposed and collaged words in the same way as I do with my graphics and art projects. I remember a journalist who wrote, with some cynicism, that of all the shops people looted, the only ones not being robbed had been the bookshops. Everyone has taken cellular and laptops, but no books. Somebody told me that the Afghan war was linked to the vast supplies of lithium there, which is needed for laptops and mobiles. I feel that if the world is being consumed by the politics of envy and the paradox of choice must be addressed. I can't see how the word political should be separated from reality.

Bobby Gillespie: I think your new version of Jerusalem is extraordinary. I would say that you have reclaimed its Blakean revolutionary origins. Was that your intention all along?

Mark Stewart: Yes. The Pop Group were playing a massive campaign for nuclear disarmament rally in Trafalgar Square for 500,000 people and I was searching for a kind of British version of We Shall Overcome and I chose Jerusalem. It's timeless.

ReadPart I of Bobby Gillespie and Mark Stewart's conversation now. Head to Markstewartmusic.com for more on the album and a free download.

10:13 AM | 23/02/2012