My next record I really just want it to be a collection of great songs, classic songs in a way.

I'm always more interested in trying things that will push me, and I don't care if I fall flat on my face doing it.

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

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.

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.

Maybe I was a bit harsh on some people. But I was harshest on myself, really.

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.