You can't keep pursuing pop success, and chasing the past.

A lot of the early songs I wrote were about the experience of going to London and meeting rent boys and transvestites and drag queens. A lot of my early material is that: the wide-eyed adventures of a middle-class boy.

I don't really have anything against Will Young or Gareth Gates.

For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.

Russians have a new freedom, but as long as they don't express that freedom on a public platform.

I thought, I might not look my best, I've forgotten half the words to my songs and I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress, but I've just got to get out there and do it.

Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process.