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

I just wanted to have some songs I could stand behind, and when I'm on stage just be loving it. People ask me why I did that and I think perhaps it's because Berlin is quite a gray place and I needed to sympathize with a bit of sunshine.

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.

I made an instrument which I'm really happy about, because I always wanted to have a machine that did this so once I established it as my unique tool, it was like, now I'm going to master it like a guitar.

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.

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.

I just throw myself into a mad frenzy, whip up a storm and see what comes through.