Some of us are born with a weakness for music. As a baby, music would stop whatever thought I was having. If I was worried, it would stop me worrying; if I was crying, it would stop me crying. Music was a healing thing for me.

I don't like crying. I'm a country boy, and we're the product of our upbringing. As a boy, I was told that men don't cry.

What is beautiful enchants me. I mean not just physical beauty but a wider concept of beauty. There is beauty in poetry and in great musical or singing performances. There is beauty everywhere if you can just see it.

A country that has really resonated with me and I was really impressed with was Israel. I found that the whole country had a very special atmosphere. I was there to perform, but it was one of the few places that I've visited over the years that I had some free time to explore, and I was hugely impressed by all the religious history there.

When a little more than a teenager, I was a piano-bar pianist in the land where I was born and raised, Tuscany.

When you sing and people want that you sing, then you can hope to be great.

I am not only fighting against something, I am fighting for something - and I am for life.