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.

The most important thing for me - and the thing I get frustrated about when I don't achieve it - is momentum. Sometimes you hit on it quite naturally and other times it's a mad struggle.

All kinds of music comes out that I'm not prepared for. Some of it is good, some of it rubbish, but I kind of accept it all. That's the nature of stream-of-consciousness. You can't always come up with your most lucid material in the heat of the moment. I take that risk when I play live. I open up my mind, however fertile a creative springboard it is that evening.

I do really enjoy having a crowd of people out to see me. They really motivate me. I feel really lucky they've come down so I give it what I have got every time.

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.

I'm not the kind of guy who likes to rush things through. I like to take my time and finish when I'm finished.

I stopped going out and taking pills and I started hanging out and learning about flat eleven chords.