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've got so much I want to do, and not a lot of time to do it in. People say to me, "You really shouldn't do so many records", because it actually harms your career.

Don't sing a song you can't carry off, like some 16-year-old kid singing 'My Way'. That song's not for you. You haven't lived that.

There's no such thing as 'I can't do it'.

I don't enjoy being a celebrity, I don't want any part of that or any part of that fame for fame... i'd actually rather die than be a celebrity slime!!!

I think there's always been singers like that and i've done my fair share of cheese as well.

A lot of youth today have become very narrow and conservative in a way, whereas we in the older generation are kind of living it.