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 had a very erratic career. I got very famous for a minute and then it just all went away, you know?

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

Sometimes there's a general arc that you want to try and get better the longer you do something.

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.

I was brought up west southwest coast of Scotland and my mother and father had a music shop, and so I was surrounded by pianos and drums and guitars, and music, of course.

I used to drink a lot. I had to stop drinking because it was getting the better of me, and I replaced that with really doing shows.