Songs that don't depend on composition depend instead on performance - so the fire has to be there in the playing.

When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition.

I'm fascinated by musicians who don't completely understand their territory; that's when you do your best work.

Reggie Watts is a most unusual talent: a huge vocal range, a natural musicality, and a sidesplitting wit. Is he a comedian? A singer? A performance artist? I've seen him a few times since then and I still can't decide. Whatever, he ain't like nobody else.

You don't have to act as if you know what you're doing

The tools are evolving, and people's interests are evolving as well. So, suddenly people like to hear bands, people like Devendra Banhart or the xx, bands that make a kind of virtue of sloppiness. That isn't what they would describe what they're doing, but the fact is they make a virtue of the sort of hand-made nature of what they're doing.

Of course, like anybody I repeat myself endlessly, but I don't know that I'm doing it, usually.