I always wanted to be a musician from when I was kid. It was always a massive dream of mine. School was also really really important to me and having an education was top of my priority. So I really wanted to have a degree before I tried anything in the music industry.

I was very quiet until I got at the piano, and weekends, lunch breaks, after school, before school, I was just making music.

Melody is the first thing that comes to me when I'm songwriting. I learned piano classically first, and then I went into soul, and so melody has always been the first. It's so important.

If I was singing like somebody else, then it was almost like I was expressing myself like somebody else. So it was always a very original thing for me. It's my voice, it's my diary, it's the way I connect with people.

The focus is on singer/songwriters now rather than huge shows. I mean, of course there's always a place for that too.

I want to speak for people that may not feel like they're being spoken for at the moment. And I want to make a connection between the world around us and the charts.

I think people don't realize how many hours of practice goes into becoming a musician and getting better.