My dad owned a tiny little shop and we never had any family holidays or anything like that, so I was sent to boarding school as a means of control more than anything I think.

I'm not saying I don't ever improvise because I do that quite a lot, especially with other people, but generally I've got an idea in my head and then I'll pursue it 'til I get there.

Unless somebody's actually creating something and doing something spontaneous I wouldn't find it at all interesting, to watch or to create, so, I'm trying to make my solo shows something different altogether.

I've also got a kind of rule where if I don't write it down and I can still remember it it's worth remembering!

I don't really worry about whether things fit into a genre or not, it's whether I like it and whether the two things sit well together, that's my main criteria when I write.

Obviously I can't rely on my group, but I don't want to rely on a laptop just to play back some backing tracks, that's not the way I do things really.

I grew up in the South Wales valleys, but I think my parents realised from quite an early age that if they hadn't sent me to boarding school I would have probably gone to prison. And it cost them absolutely everything.