I think I've been interested in music since I was little.

I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.

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.

There's a level of discipline I use as a writer, designed to get better at what I'm doing, that requires quite a lot of study and quite a lot of hard work as well.

I never feel that I have to adopt a character. It's more the way I choose to present the music and that's always based on what is right for the song.

I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.

But even when I do give interviews, I always come across as such a completely different person. It seems like there's no controlling it anyway.