ALDOUS HARDING

There are very few things in the world that make me feel a feeling, really.

Designer' is meant to mean whatever it means.

It's been a very strong force for me over the years. I don't know exactly why. For some people, fear can be a very useful thing. They can use it to recognise there's something missing, and heal themselves. But fear can also destroy some people. I think I'm the first type of person. I'm pretty anxious, always thinking 'what if?' about the bad stuff.

Probably when I was about 16 or 17 I started writing. I wouldn't call it poetry, even though I've referred to it as poetry a couple times. But I don't think that's right. It was more scribblings and stream of consciousness.

I'm focused on my future. I'm ignoring my past, apart from the bits that I draw from to help me focus on my future.

I like 'The Simpsons' like everybody else. But yeah - people think I'll always be super intense.

I'm not much of a fan-girl.

You should see my stepdad's face when he's lifting something. It's the scariest thing I've ever seen! So you can't expect, just because I'm a potentially pretty person, that I won't allow myself to try out emotional states that might make me look ugly to some people.

I think a bit of mystery is good, and I used to feel like an eccentric person pretending to be normal. But I am actually just a normal person seeming eccentric, by what I'm putting myself through.

We've played quite a few festivals now. We can take care of it, no matter where we are.

I've always been, like a lot of people, driven by fear. Always focusing on the fire on the rope, as opposed to what the rope is coming from.

I want to be well enough to enjoy the things I've made.

All I ever wanted to do was to do something interesting.

I don't really like to talk about what my songs are about.

I find that comforting and an equally purposeful way to think, that there's lots of ways to flex both your strengths and your weaknesses.

I had a little radio next to the bed and I'd just listen to the top 10 - I mean, it was crap but I was young - and I would get up in the dark with the moon coming in through the window and I would just dance in my pajamas in the dark to the top 10. I didn't have a CD player... so it was kind of all I had, you know?

My music's doing things, out there in the world, and that's a very positive feeling, you know? I haven't had a job I've been this good at or this excited about since I was a dog groomer!

For like four or five months of my life I was too scared to like, move around and reach out for things because I was worried that I'd my hands would run into glass, like I could reach up and if I reached up and knocked on the air it would make a noise. I couldn't look at the sky because I was worried that I see a crack.

You know, we've had some pretty rough festival stages.

My family used to put on a small folk festival.

My head is full of songs I'm writing now, and things I am thinking now. I'm not very good at drawing on things that have happened, things I think might happen, or things I want to happen. I'm very much in right now.

I really do feel like an unremarkable person trying really hard, openly, to do something interesting and to make something of value and pleasure.

I'm not afraid to look stupid and I'm not afraid to look like I'm trying too hard.

I don't have necessarily good taste. I have some really good taste and I have some really awful taste. I don't see the difference, because when you use them together they can work.

If people say to me, 'So, what were you doing in Dubai in that song?' or they spend ages comparing me to some other singer, I just shut down, I guess.