Country music was the music I was brought up on. It's the music that's closest to my heart and the music that speaks to me the most, and it's always been a big influence on my own songwriting.

I do think it's probably true to a certain extent that you tend to sing music that fits your voice. If you're Lou Reed, you're unlikely to become a country singer.

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

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?

I came from a folk-family background. Although we weren't really the all-singing, all-dancing-around-the-piano folkies or anything like that, there is that idea of singing and playing with your parents and your family and your cousins.

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.

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.