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.

I'm always constantly battling with dry patches. I think I need a Plan B. Thankfully, I've always been able to pull something out of the bag in the heat of the moment.

I really wanted to maintain that bedroom philosophy to creating stuff. I don't believe the hype; I think a great record is because I put a lot of love into it. If people are feeling it, that's fantastic.

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.

There's a difference between writing, the written word, and music. When you have the blank page it doesn't make a sound, which is like what happens to me every night when I'm playing. There is that crazy moment: the first mark you make on the page. But sound can inspire sound, in a way that words can't inspire words - at least for me. The nature of sound itself is still a huge mystery to me. I'm very happy about that.