You could be your own spotlight!

There are two types of bands - there are the ones that are basically solo projects anyways, where there's clearly the one guy who's driving the ship and everyone else is just along for the ride. And then there was my band, where you have a few very disparate-taste, creative people who kind of meet in the middle somewhere.

I think writing is a much more personal thing.

You have total freedom. It's like, if you do a solo record, there are no restrictions and you can do whatever you want, good or bad. You can have these passing fancies where you go in to the studio one day and you want to do something like what you did on the way in. That's dangerous. You have to have some sort of focus.

I am genuinely into soul, R&B and hip hop - all these genres that get slapped under the 'soul' genre. That spoke to me more than it did to my punk-rock friends. And punk spoke more to me than it did to my soul friends. I basically didn't fit comfortably in either world.

I would love to hang out with Elvis Costello, to see what he's up to because he seems so fascinating to me.

There's no first impressions anymore. You go to a job interview, and they'll probably Google you. It's a shame - people should play it a little closer to the chest as far as what information they release to the world. If I'm angry about something, I'm not going to take to my Twitter.