I never was the front man in any bands I played in when I was in college, and I always learned music by myself at home.

I'm an introspective human being and someone who likes to be alone in a room. The idea of going out and talking to people...there's something appealing about it, but also there's something that feels alien to me, as a cynical Irish man.

The hip-hop aesthetic and the way it's produced always motivated me. Alongside that I was still wanting to make great traditional songs because I've never had any desire to rap. My love of hip-hop is driven by my love of rappers, but it was built out of my love of producers.

Its always important to fall back on your instincts and core beliefs and that was pretty hard for me to do but trusting in my self the way I trusted that if I were to sit at a piano for two hours and I was going learn something, that trust I'd put in myself really helped me get through it. For five to six months I just wrote songs and believed they would turn out to be things I could be proud of and be happy.

I'm mostly a keep-to-myself kind of guy, but you slowly find yourself getting folded into the musical tapestry.

When I started out making music I thought it was about thrills and adding layers, but I realized I want to focus on saying the most with the least.

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.