There's a lot of people I know who have a lot of synthesisers and they don't really know anything about them, they know the specifications and everything, but they don't really get to know them.

I tend to work in the mornings, then take a few hours off in the afternoon to walk the dog, and then come back and work in the evening. So, if I can remember my pre-dog walking music when I get back then that's fine, I'll kind of commit to those bits, but if I can't remember them I'll just move on to something else.

Going to public school is like living in bubble, you have no concept of what other people do.

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 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.

If you saw my musical collection it's absolutely horrendous, I've got everything from Stockhausen to The Beach Boys to Gina G, all sorts of terrible things and other people come here and look at my record collection and go, "Ah, you can't possibly like that - how embarrassing!"