It can be difficult going through a period of time where you feel depressed because it can become your identifier. In the sense that you wake up, you're depressed; you talk to your friends, you're complaining that you're depressed; you talk to your parents, you're unmotivated. You know what you could do to try to overcome it - although obviously there's no cure - but you start to feel like, 'what will happen to me if I feel better? Who am I when I'm happy. I'm so used to feeling like this.'

I love '80s happy music. I love Cyndi Lauper and Madonna, and the idea of making music that's about people celebrating fun. I spent my late adolescence in New York and I used to go to a lot of gay clubs. The music there was always just about love and connection and celebrating life. I think, for people going through something really hard, to go to a place where you can let loose and listen to music as a distraction, that's about a better place, a better way of life - that's where all the attraction lies.

If I start writing a song and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.

Before Guadalcanal the enemy advanced at his pleasure - after Guadalcanal he retreated at ours.

As an artist you very much want to have control over your dialogue and your image and when you become exposed in a way where other people are manipulating your brand or the public perception of you that's where it can be frustrating. It's when you want to tell everyone to shut the f*** up and say "hear it from me, not from them." That's all.

Pop music really is a love and a joy and a science [of songwriting].

If you're not inspired and you're working hard to pull inspiration from somewhere and make a song something it's not, then it's very contrived and I don't like to write music that's contrived.