I like the process of writing songs. It makes me feel good.

In Scotland, beautiful as it is, it was always raining. Even when it wasn't raining, it was about to rain, or had just rained. It's a very angry sky.

I got very famous for a minute and then it just all went away, you know? And for the last 20 years - you've got to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and then go on your merry way and start again, in a sense, and that's what I've been doing.

I'd love to have a hit record. I don't believe anyone that says they wouldn't like that.

It's great fun if you get a good piece of writing and you can pretend to be someone else, tell a story that needs to be told, make some kind of connection. I've always fancied myself as a leading man, but I really doubt whether anyone else sees me that way.

I tend to write, either myself, or I sometimes write with a co-writer, my friend that lives up the road. It's usually a relatively solitary thing, but I do like coming up with ideas.

The thing with playing live is, most of the audience is in their 20s and 30s. If you're older than that, you don't tend to go out to shows anymore. So it's good if you can attract a younger audience because they've got the energy to get up off the sofa and go out.