There's a sense that, on a certain day, you want to destroy everything, even the ones you love. Humans are weird like that. You build an empire and you hate it as soon as it's done. That's because we're never satisfied.

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.

Improvisation is risky. I like that. Another practical reason for that is that you have to go out and play every day on a tour. I couldn't do it if I thought I was going to do the same songs every day in the same order, like a full-on robot.

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.

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