I try to see as much dance, theatre and films as I can because all of it feeds me in a way that I need feeding for what I do.

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

Yeah, I mean I am somebody that makes an effort to go and see a lot of exhibitions, painting, drawing, sculpture.

I find it hard myself to feel justified to sing in a very politically direct way about war or social conditions because I feel so ignorant of a lot of it.

Some people, like Leonard Cohen, write one album every 10 years, and labor over a song for five years at a time.

The way I make music is unique to myself and the way I have lived my life - no one else would tell that story in the same way that I do.

It's so much in me to want to keep experimenting all the time. It's just inherent. Therefore I keep reaching for instruments I don't particularly know how to play, and then I become excited. That gives me energy to want to make new things, and it forces me to hear things in new ways, which then can only help to say things in a new way.