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 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.

That's what I like to do, I like to make songs.

These days i tend to use one project I do as a kind of offshoot to the next.

I'm the most indecisive person in the world. I'll do three versions of a song, then think, "Is the demo better?"

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

So often, the singer is the sound of the record. People think they can cover anything, but the whole voice is the thing that's unrepeatable.