I was very much a mess, as a person. I'd come from a very turbulent teenage life, with parents who had broken up in a very bad way, and a lot of illness at school.

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.

I don't care much about success or anything like that. I've only ever wanted life to be an adventure.

I was quite naïve, a boy from Southport. When I went to art college in Leeds, I lived in a basement flat, and I heard clunking on the stairs all night, and I thought it was just nurses going to work on the night shift at the local hospital! Then I found out it was all working girls upstairs. I suppose I came from a protected background and had my eyes opened wide by that side of city life.

I made a creativity out of that messiness.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everything in the past is great and everything modern is terrible. But I do think cities should be a mix of old things and new things.

We just kind saw the images and knew the cliches, so to have the opportunity to go there and learn something about Russian music and about Russian people and to see things apart from being a tourist.