When I look back at 2003, it was the best year I've ever had creatively: having 'Transatlanctism' and 'Give Up come' out in the course of six months. I'll never have another year like that.
When I finish a song, I never feel like I want to restrict its life. I feel that once I've done something, it's out. It's in people's ears, cars, headphones. It has its own journey.
Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.
People like Sam Smith and Adele, they're album artists but for me, where I go around the world and sounds are changing so quickly, singles are the best way to get those influences out there and try new things out.
I started realizing that music is the one area where I've always let go. When that saxophone goes into my mouth, I get into a space where I never think about the notes I've already played or anticipate the notes ahead.
I'm not going to put out a Christmas CD until it's coming out of me naturally.
I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.
My fans are lunatics. I encourage mosh pits, I encourage lunacy, I make music to let go to.
That's when I'm at my rawest. When I'm performing with the band. It's just like the groove is going, whether we're fast or slow, I can just transport myself.
All the words are already there when you're singing onstage, it's fantastic. You can lose yourself in what you've created. You're controlling this freedom.
I get twitchy if I don't pick up a guitar or sit at the piano every now and then... I have to do it; I don't have a choice.
Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.
If I have something inside me that I want to get out, I'll just beat it out on the banjo right then and there.
Music is my way of taking my mind away from the game. When I'm singing, you don't got anything to worry about. Don't gotta worry about scoring however many points or winning the game. No matter how good or how bad you are, it's fun.
There are certain parts of chords that resolve things and tie a bow, and others that keep things open and unanswered.
I'm a compulsive musician, but it's also a bloody good way out of having to do anything else.
I have absorbed my life now. I am ready for my music to unfold. I know time flies, but before the end of this year, the album will be out. Even if it kills me.
My songs tend to sprint toward some epiphany and then explode.
Look at Kate Bush, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono - three really private people, but when they're on stage or when they're singing, they let go like no one else.
There's a part of me that wants to let all the different moments of 'Wild World' to have their moment and be released properly.
I sometimes feel I want to release an album without people knowing it is me.
