I've always explored things that people find a bit more freakish, like free jazz, and I'd gotten to a point where the live music I was making was really hectic and turning much more confrontational. So when I started working on Everything Ecstatic, that was very normal for me. I think it was a departure, but people read it as an escape from something, whereas every record I do is, I feel, a departure.

My father is a massive, massive music fan. I grew up listening to rock, soul and jazz.

So many people I was at school with have all ended up being musicians and putting records out.

I find that people in American are often much more purist. If you're into hip-hop, you're totally into hip-hop - you wear the uniform, that's all you listen to. If you're a goth, you're totally a goth - you've got, like, 4,000 piercings, black hair, you really go for it.

Gospel isn't some ditty to make people enjoy their afternoon - it's communicating with God.

I worked on the tracks so they sounded as good as possible in there... I wanted to make something that was for the night.

When drum'n'bass happened, when the two-step/garage thing happened, there was a chart smash every week; it operated on the underground and the pinnacle of pop mainstream at the same time.