I think where you play is important.

I always wanted to know what the music behind some music was, or where it came from, and that gave me a point of reference for understanding the music I was listening to.

I don't want to copy the people I admire - I'd rather find out what inspired them and try to find my own way through it.

Sometimes language is not enough.

Going to the Sahara Desert and meeting the Touareg band Tinariwen was a life-changing experience. All through that time, I have just carried on learning and meeting musicians, and I keep finding links between different forms.

There actually had been a tradition within English music of the '60s of people looking eastwards, maybe in quite a naïve way, but nonetheless, you had musicians like George Harrison or Bryan Jones recording the musicians of Joujouka in North Africa.

In some traditional African dances, people wear masks in order to become the embodiments of particular spirits. I have heard that they often cover the mouth-piece with spider webs or something that resonates, so that their voice gets distorted, ceasing to be the voice of a human and becoming representative of a voice that comes from another world.