My career could've been anything, I just wasn't that good at other things. I'd say it was fairly easy starting out as I did in LA, meeting some great friends and musicians and landing a record deal. That's where the hard work began though.

The songs are definitely all about me. I am my favourite subject.

I remember writing 'The One I Can't Have' at the kitchen table. I was looking at a picture of Truman Capote with Marilyn Monroe and that's where I started. It doesn't make any sense because he was gay, but it was just the idea of the short guy and the beautiful blonde out of his league. That's where I started, but very quickly it became about me.

I went to a boarding school when I was 13, and it was a very arty school, so there was an opportunity for a lot more. I joined a band and so on. We would do concerts at school, and I would play cover tunes and thought, 'This is really great.'

I love the sad songs with their maudlin, self-deprecating, almost funny lyrics. As an Englishman, they make a lot of sense.

Any kind of creativity is not settling down into a happy little space. I don't try to be mellow or anything. I think I have quite... my voice is what it is, no matter what I'm singing, it's always going to sound like me. There's not too far I could go. I sound like myself. I hope that I haven't put any boundaries on anything.

I used to listen to my dad a lot as a way of trying to be close to him, as well, because my parents were divorced and I didnt spend that much time with him. I used to put head phones on and listen to my dad talk and sing and kind of had a weird bonding in a way.