I think I was just too young to even understand what was going on. When I was still living in South Africa, there was still so much racial tension.

My family still lives over there [ in South Africa] .I miss them terribly. I would say that most of my life over there was probably very similar to the sort of life someone would experience growing up somewhere like Australia or in the US.

I met the guys at HeavyRoc through the drummer in St. Lucia, Nick Brown. He is Ben from The Knocks' cousin, and at the time we'd been doing some work together, but everything was still very much in the unsure developmental phase (even though I'd been in it for a year and a half). I told him that if he was going to play the music for anyone that he shouldn't say anything about it and should just play it and see if anyone says anything, and he did it one day at their studio and they loved it and got it touch.

I remember my friends at primary and secondary school admiring my work and even paying me money for some of my pieces.

We lived in a suburb in Johannesburg, which is a massive city of about 8 million people, and my parents would drive me to school every day and over the weekend I would go to the mall and then occasionally on Safari. Pretty normal stuff, apart from the Safari.

Everyone can of course take their own meaning, that's the beauty of music and lyrics, but to me it seems like everything is about being attached to the past and being afraid of moving forward, afraid of that big dive or step and losing what was.

A true artist is practically married to his or her art form so I just couldn't turn my back on it.