Gandhi was only minding his own business when he took a walk to get some salt and ended up overthrowing the British Empire. You can't set out to overthrow an empire, but if you have to get some salt then get some salt. If you have to write some independent songs that are honest, just write them. If you have to do a day job stacking shelves, so be it.

The school was prone to dishing out punishments for anything creative that didn't fit with expectation - I just followed the logic and figured the folk club was probably much the same.

I don't know to what extent someone can BECOME an artist - you either are or you aren't - and if you are you'll HAVE to make your way to some kind of sickly light, no matter how terrible the soil you were seeded in your nature will out somehow.

I've been getting pretty focused about that recently, and even considered doing a masters degree to polish up the craft. I've been pretty lucky in that I seem to have found people online who are willing to constructively tear it apart for me, and indicate its weaknesses.

There's nothing like doing something wrong to learn how it might be done better.

The statistics of mines that need clearance are staggering but the truth is it's a challenge that is absolutely doable.

Whatever the opposite of regret is best describes how I've always felt about that decision - it opened me up to a million creative opportunities I needed to experience away from the bull and distorting mirrors that fame engenders.