I pick up my guitar and play. Something might come, and then the pen comes out. Then an edit, until something comes out that you're actually satisfied with.

Sometimes travelling really intensely for a long time is like having a continuous nervous breakdown.

Everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking. Busking, you learn people, you learn about reading people. You learn about reading the atmosphere of the street. If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. It's almost like you get to know personality types, just by watching people walk past. You get a sense for things.

I think it's very interesting, people who can't stand people who whinge and whine. It seems almost like a class issue. Because you think about who is the most positive, who's the most redemptive songwriter that's ever existed in your lifetime?

I choose to believe that there is good in people and that everything is a lesson. Our place on Earth is to go deeper, to somehow get wiser. To have spirit.

I grew up wearing black arm-bands when the hunger strikers died. I went on those marches. I grew up basically a Provo, though I never obviously got into any activities. I was writing 'IRA, Brits out' on walls all over where I grew up, but that was a false sense of Irishness.

Do I create conflicts for myself? Sure I do.