A performance is only as good as the audience you are playing to. A lot of times you feed off of the audience, and we always try to give them all we've got and sometimes you don't get a lot back, but we've never been dead whenever we've performed.

The culture's changed massively. The kids are different, with the phones and stuff. Even if you like a song, you don't really know who the artists are, it's a lot more faceless, it's a lot less tribal. When we were growing up it was much more tribal - it was rock, it was grunge. Now people like songs, [but] they don't necessarily know the song's origins. I don't know how you would feel angry at the world, or distressed, because most people are constantly distracted or consumed.

The song Dakota was first written in Paris. I was doing a promo trip. It was snowing and the hotel room was really cold and boring and for some reason I just had a go of the guitar and the song came pretty quick.

We didn't really want to be an overnight success as that brings with it its own problems.

There's a good sarcasm and a camaraderie that comes after being in a band. And we've known each other forever. We've never been a band that fought or argued. As a songwriter, I'm really happy that the boys support me and contribute and that, but I've always wanted to be under the band Stereophonics.

Big shows are more like events and small shows are more like traditional gigs.

It's a completely different way of working when you have your own place for recording. It's like if you were a painter, and you do loads of painting, and you just pick which paintings you want to exhibit. It's a much nicer, freer way of making work; you're not limited to anything, and you can make these cool, weird little albums.