It's weird how things are really stop-start in my creative process. I can't just turn it on - it just happens kind of randomly and I've just got to ride it when it's good. Surf's up! It's like that.

I do my best to make music spontaneously. It's very personal in a way. It's really a direct connection between me and anyone who's watching. I don't want to be in my own bubble. I'm reaching out.

You have to sit with the songs until they start to live. Or do things straight-up spontaneously. I set up a beat just like I do in the live show, add the lyrics that I wrote in thirty minutes - I already had a topic in mind because I had this crazy experience with this girl who was trying to get close to me and it freaked me out because she was really close to another friend of mine, and I thought, "This is a story, I'm gonna make this into a song."

If a shop has a lot of sections I'll end up putting my record above the James Blunt CDs since he ripped off my bloody artwork and he's selling millions of records! I try to get people to buy mine accidentally.

I can see that in retrospect but I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me.

Accessible music is much harder. I could throw out the other kind of albums with my eyes closed. I wouldn't belittle those who want to do the Tricky thing, but it does make me wonder sometimes.

I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me. I don't feel it in myself but from an outsider's point of view, I can see they must be thinking, "Who the hell does this guy think he is?" But recently I've been thinking, okay, a white guy can't sing soul, but would a black person be made exempt from singing opera because it's not a tradition that belongs to them? It's the same kind of argument.