I saw Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, which I thought was a masterpiece. Not that long ago, I listened to Blackstar by David Bowie and thought that was a masterpiece. Those are two incredibly talented people who've left their mark with us.

I love words, I think they're fascinating and incredibly wonderful things and part of the joy of my work is that I not only get to work with music but also with words. Sometimes it's a difficult process but a lot of the time it's really fun.

[For Before the Dawn] it was in the hands of a fantastic drummer and percussionist and who drove it into another moment in time. It's such a poignant song and it was transformed into entirely different beast.

Every old sock meets an old shoe

The more I think about sex, the better it gets!

You're never really happy. I'm certainly not. That's a good thing. It means you're always striving to do better. You hope the next piece will be better.

When I'm writing I've been playing something for a couple of hours and I'm almost in a trance. At two or three in the morning you can actually see bits inspiration floating about and grab them.