Wilko once had ambitions to be a painter and a poet, and the publication of the book is the first time that his artwork has been seen outside his home. Looking Back at Me also reveals the myriad cultural touchstones of a working-class rock'n'roller and deeply complex man. I always think that he really was the wellspring of Dr Feelgood.' 'There was this sequence and it was just me and Lee Brilleaux on stage together and suddenly I got this powerful flash and I remembered what it was like to be on stage with him. He admits to an emotional moment when watching Oil City Confidential, a recollection that makes him twiddle his fingers. Wilko now sings lead vocals with his band, and when he speaks of Brilleaux, it is with admiration. It was a bitter personality clash between Brilleaux – who died of cancer in 1994 at the age of 41 – and Johnson that caused the break up of the original Dr Feelgood in 1977. 'Lee took the knife off him without interrupting the show – which shows quite a bit of class, I think.' Wilko mentions an exception when the band's late singer Lee Brilleaux jumped into the crowd to confront a man with a knife who had started a brawl. The audience understood that and, despite the aggression in songs such as 'Riot In Cell Block #9', there was rarely trouble at Feelgood shows. don't it feel like a gun? You really, really do it! And it's exactly the same on stage! It's no machine gun, man, it's a Telecaster!' 'When you're kids playing cops and robbers you're using your fingers as your gun and you know you are just playing but. 'The way you were looking at people, you were doing that because that was what people want,' he says, making his hand into the shape of a gun. In the classic Wilko pose on stage, his eyes are popping and he is pointing his Fender Telecaster at the audience like a Sten gun, gliding to and fro on the end of his red guitar lead.

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