Bill Withers, Van Morrison and Marvin Gaye are pioneers in popular music for the last century, and these are people who have influenced me as well, so it's pretty flattering. I've got a long way to go to reach anywhere near what those guys have done. But it's a good encouragement.

Bill Withers, Van Morrison and Marvin Gaye are pioneers in popular music for the last century, and these are people who have influenced me as well, so it's pretty flattering. I've got a long way to go to reach anywhere near what those guys have done. But it's a good encouragement.

By that point, I was about 12, 13 years old. I was this young black kid into rock music, which was kind of strange. People would always assume I'd be into like more modern R&B, which is a stereotype, but that was kind of what was expected. And I had all these guitar magazines of all these musicians that didn't look like me. So I assumed Jimmi Hendrix was one of those.

I remember listening to like gospel-y blues tunes. I'd just listen to the rhythm and the music was upbeat. Always upbeat if you get like a good rhythm you can nod your head. You just feel good. But then when you listen to the lyrics it was quite sad.

With writing music and writing songs and recording music and coming up with stuff, you need to kind of reengage that kind of inner child to come up with interesting perceptions.

Jimi Hendrix came on TV on this documentary and it was this African-American soulful black guy, playing an electric guitar, which I'd just started. And it just blew my head off. I had like an afro at the time, too. It was a bit all over the place. And it wasn't a thing to have an afro. No, that's kind of quite old school. You're supposed to have like a neatly cut shaped up haircut.

The main thing in making your own music is that it's an expression of someone's personality and being. That's what people want to hear, and you can't really teach that - that's just something that comes out. Teaching just hones that.