If you work hard and you're good, you can build something for yourself.

Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter, a major influence on my own music from the very start.

I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.

I have an English family and I've lived in England for years.

Being at college, I think that's the time when you really start searching for things outside yourself.

I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.

Yes, I travel in unusual circles. George Osborne and his wife Frances are my cousins.