I'm not a betting man.

I heard the Bloc Party record Japan before it came out in the UK as they are on the V2 record label. I think it has a great vibe and has great songs. I also think the Kings of Leon are right up my street.

We've got a great bench of songs, and the people have a really good time at our Stereophonics's shows. People are the same all over the world. If we can play football stadiums and arenas in one country, there's no reason we can't play them in another country. People are people.

I don't really know how to do anything else except music. But I do. I've never felt more comfortable doing it. When I was put into arenas and stadiums when I was 27, I always thought somebody was going to say, 'No, they're not here for you.' You don't quite believe that they actually like you, because it's an extreme change in your life. Which is insane really, because they bought the ticket. So you start feeling more comfortable in your skin the more you do something, or the older you get.

Japan is quite weird because they wait for you to say something before they respond. You can literally hear a pin drop, they don't make a sound until you say something to the crowd.

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.

Every song I've written, it's about what I've gone through, good or bad. It kind of comes out of me, and I'm grateful for that. I've got friends who are back home who've got no way to express that, and they're kind of in a different position in life. It's alarming to me that I've written something on my bedroom floor when I was 19 or something, and then there's 50,000 people that know the words, and they've got a similar feeling. If you thought about it too much, your head would blow up.