I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems, or sometimes not.

People have a tendency to see country life through rose-colored glasses.

And all of these writers offer me a greater understanding of what it is to be alive, and that is such an incredible thing art can do for other people. It made me want to try and get close to this strange, mysterious thing that people can do with words.

I come from an art-school background, and I still feel that in my music, it's about exploration and challenging myself, about putting myself in a place that's frightening because I haven't been there before.

I think I'm a maker of songs, and songs are like films or a picture: You put them over there, and they have nothing to do with you.

Most of the stuff that I do talk about, about being counted out and being an underdog, 'cause that's what I feel like I am.

In the same way, I write some of my more difficult pieces when I'm at very happy stages in my life.