It's the faster bands that made me want to play guitar, bands like The Jam.

You know Manchester is always a bit of a hard place for people coming from London, just with all the history. Manchester has this immensely huge and healthy history musically.

It's mostly Mars Bars and peanuts and cheese and you go to the fridge and there's Red Bull and Beer. It's not like people are holding me down and pouring beer in my face.

It's the faster bands that made me want to play guitar, bands like The Jam.

Like, Mission Of Burma to me always sounded almost like they were part of the British Arty New Wave. I kind of like that. I like not being able to tell the difference.

There were some extremely good teachers there that were great artists really in their own right. It was actually very hard to concentrate on getting down to going any work being an art student especially when it's a flighty thing at best.

I think of someone like Mariah Carey as a singer.