Really, what I'm always drawn to is the voice - PJ Harvey , Björk . If the voice interests me, then I'm interested to listen to what's happening.

"I dissolve in trust, I will sing with joy, I will end up dust". The line really spoke to me. That's what it is: Enjoy what you have here. You're not going to be here forever, but the songs stay forever. For me, it's like Bowie songs - they carry me, and they continue to, even though he's gone.

I'm not that type of musician where I can sit down at the piano and work out a song; I actually really enjoy that process of sitting with somebody and having nothing and then suddenly something starts appearing. You struggle with it, and then suddenly a song starts to appear. Then, you've got to try and muscle it - there's that word again - into something and you do. You tussle with it and play with it and roll around with it and suddenly, magically, something appears.

New York is a great place to feel inspired all the time.

I still hold on to the idea that a record can really change the way I feel.

The thing about Depeche songs is that they’re so descriptive. For me, they tell some kind of story about a character who’s trying to redeem himself or to find something to believe in-some kind of faith or hope.

You have a tendency to just remember the bad times and bad moments. I think that often it's the way of life. Yet the rewards we got from it were fantastic and we played a lot of shows to sellout audiences in I don't know how many cities. I just think we didn't realise how insane it was until we were actually right in the middle of it and couldn't stop. We just couldn't stop.