A good song to one person could just be something mediocre to somebody else. It's always strange thinking about how songs connect with people.

I love the hamster but I think if I took him on tour he might die.

The idea was that the record itself ['The Bones Of What You Believe' ] is a kind of labour of love for us - all our energy and all our passion and all the stuff we believed in is in that record, so you're kind of handing that off to other people, if that makes sense.

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.

Writing with other people is the only way I ever really work. In some ways it's great because it's helpful to someone pull you out of the loop.

Nobody is strong 100 percent of the time, or falling apart 100 percent of the time; sometimes you're doing both at once.

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.