I come from a place where there's a lot of musical families.

Even for the people in the business who are real music lovers it's really about putting things in the right boxes, and my style doesn't fit into a box.

I'm never worried about being upstaged. I love to have the best, most individual people come in and see if we hit on something.

I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most moved by. Roy Orbison came a little bit later.

I don't try to stop myself from becoming too personal. I just put it all out there. If anything, I try to remind myself to be as honest as possible all the time. Why hold back?

There's this bubblegum pop thing which is prevalent now that we haven't had before. People's ears are slightly de-tuned; they've been exposed to this weird synthetic, implausibly upbeat, Mickey Mouse stuff which I think is just weird; it's not really a human sound.

Everyone's different, but it was fun for me to work with Garth Hudson. He's from 'The Band.' They are a massive influence, that was a big thrill. He's completely out of his mind.