For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.
I'd always wanted to write a song about a leather jacket and how wearing it makes you feel. I love leather jackets, and I've got a big collection of them.
I liked the idea of writing a song saying I'm happy with who I am, and I don't mind if people think I'm some old git.
I thought, I might not look my best, I've forgotten half the words to my songs and I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress, but I've just got to get out there and do it.
Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process.
Don't sing a song you can't carry off, like some 16-year-old kid singing 'My Way'. That song's not for you. You haven't lived that.
My next record I really just want it to be a collection of great songs, classic songs in a way.
I can imagine moving out to the seaside at some point. I like Brighton, my sister lives there. I'm a seaside boy and whenever I go there, I find myself writing songs about it.
That's what I like to do, I like to make songs.
A lot of the early songs I wrote were about the experience of going to London and meeting rent boys and transvestites and drag queens. A lot of my early material is that: the wide-eyed adventures of a middle-class boy.
Albums, with me, have never had an easy birth. Especially when all the songs are self-written songs.
I'm the most indecisive person in the world. I'll do three versions of a song, then think, "Is the demo better?"
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