I try to shut my brain down as much as possible. And let the melodies flow, if possible.

It's funny because you do often read in recounts of very famous albums, people tend to focus on mistakes in really positive ways, and there's certain mistakes of my own that I always do find on every record that I needed to accept. I find it really interesting to talk about. I always write songs at the wrong tempos, and I have to learn to accept that a little bit.

I think I spent more time on the mellotron than on any other instrument in the studio, and it got to the point where I was like, "Well, you can't write an entire album on this instrument." But maybe I would!

I just reached the point where I realised, I need to stop repeating myself if I'm ever actually going to enjoy the music I'm creating.

I have tried to write soundtracks, and the main problem with those was that the directors often had in their minds a much stronger sense of what they wanted to hear, than what I was willing to give them, and I guess there was no way to say, "Well why don't you write your scene around my music?" Because that's just cocky and awful.

The more I know, the more I realise I don't know. And the more I realise I'll never truly understand.

Raucous drunken trumpets and instrumentation tend to guide the way you think. They can give you a path to follow lyrically.