In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money.

You know, albums are a funny thing. They're not like an intellectual decision. It's a collection of your kind of musings. Like it's a collection of your diary entries and you pick which one's gonna make the most sense together and you put out a record and you sort of live it.

Do I create conflicts for myself? Sure I do.

I busked from the age of 13 until I was 18.

There are people who can sit down and write a song about any given subject, and they can do it really, really well.

Keeping the pen out of your hand as much as possible is the best way to write a song, in my estimation. But the pen must come in to tighten it up.

I absolutely adore the alchemy of a bit of an idea.