If you think of any long-term artist that makes music throughout several decades, you would hope that it's autobiographical and a form of self-expression, and that's certainly how I approach my music.

I've always feel like it's been my place to offer an alternative.

When I make music, it takes me two hours to get into the flow. To me it's like tapping into some kind of subconscious frequency: I just have to turn everything else off, open up part of myself, expose my fears and try to work through it in the music that I'm making.

I would rather have 10 people working on a record that are really committed and believe in it and love it, than 50 people who have no idea who I am or what I'm for.

Sometimes there's this balance: if you try to clear 10 things you'll probably get lucky and be able to clear most of them, or all of them; try to clear 20 things, in my mind there's gonna be at least one issue, maybe two - and then that's when it starts getting into either re-recording stuff, or you've got to take that song off.

Another one of my favourite sayings is, you can't handpick your audience. I feel like I'm making music for people who think like me about music, and that takes a lot of different forms. I could never generalise - but I think if I were to generalise, I'd think that you would say that most of my fans are music lovers who are looking for something outside of the mainstream: maybe a little bit hard to pin down, a little bit hard to categorise.

I personally feel the need to experience life and new music and ideas before I can sit down and start writing music again.