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.

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.

It's the way I make music, I will take two ideas and smash them together and if they sit well together for me then that's fine, and it's the same with the lyrics - if I see a couple of lines and I like the way they look on the page then I'll use them. I find they take on a meaning of their own, it's very difficult to explain how I actually go about all that.

I still love pop music, I still have a huge pop music collection, and I like that juxtaposition of styles.

I write all the time, I've got a big, thick, old ledger book that I write stuff down in. I used to watch TV and write things that people would say and now I tend to get it more out of books and from conversations with people I meet.

As a person who has a pretty short attention span I think of music like that, completely. That's why I can quite happily change genres mid-song.

I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I did tend to buy things and just hang on to them.