I try to write lyrics so that they won't age, which sort of leaves you with the big subjects like death and love and sex and violence.

I love Lady Gaga and I love Katy Perry and R&B and rap music... I love big, American pop music.

Maybe in music you're making an auditory environment and maybe you change your environment around you to suit your own way.

But I was always much more interested in reading fashion magazines than I was music magazines when I was a teenager. Just that sense of romanticism and escapism and the dream of it has always been quite alluring to me, as well as that sense of becoming a character through clothes.

I've spent a lot of time in tiny venues in the way that I got my record deal and got my name out there just performing live. I was literally performing my songs in all kinds of different ways with different guitarists, and I didn't have an album up online or anything. It's been a lot of work; it definitely hasn't been a sudden explosion into fame.

The aesthetic came along the way, I think - just through experimenting, and going on tour, and trying stuff out on stage, having fun with it, and not taking it too seriously. If I had a ballgown at home, I'd wear it onstage. If I found something in a charity shop, I'd wear it. That's where it grew from - just wanting to play dress-up.

The only music I was listening to for ages was old soul. So I wasn't listening to a lot of new music - especially indie music.