No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose. For me, it's always about melody - it doesn't matter what genre of music you're writing, if there's a strong melodic thing somewhere, whether that's in a vocal or in a guitar part or a sample. Something that sticks in your brain, that seems to be something that works.

No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose. For me, it's always about melody - it doesn't matter what genre of music you're writing, if there's a strong melodic thing somewhere, whether that's in a vocal or in a guitar part or a sample. Something that sticks in your brain, that seems to be something that works.

My dissertation was on the idea of feminine-themed women's magazines, so like how the ideal woman is put across by women's magazines.

I try not to say exactly what songs are about sometimes, because I feel like it ruins it for people.

Everyone's [ me, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty] equally involved in all the writing. Normally we'll start with a sample or a drumbeat, or a synth sound or something like that, and that will spark the initial idea. And then we'll write an instrumental sketch of a song, and then we put on a nonsense vocal melody, which is always my favourite bit because it obviously sounds amazing.

I've been in bands since I was about fifteen, so there are probably quite a lot of terrible teenage songs kicking about somewhere. I'm not sure what it was about to be honest, I think it was probably just something along the lines of teen angst.

I like the idea of a record being more than one thing emotionally - human beings go through so many emotions in one day, and I like those things sitting next to each other.