My dad owned a tiny little shop and we never had any family holidays or anything like that, so I was sent to boarding school as a means of control more than anything I think.

Sometimes I just experiment quite a lot. I've always got my computer set up to record so I'll just record a sort of library of ideas [that] I'll either come back to or use as they stand.

I still love pop music, I still have a huge pop music collection, and I like that juxtaposition of styles.

As a person who has a pretty short attention span I think of music like that, completely. That's why I can quite happily change genres mid-song.

I'm not saying I don't ever improvise because I do that quite a lot, especially with other people, but generally I've got an idea in my head and then I'll pursue it 'til I get there.

I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I did tend to buy things and just hang on to them.

I write all the time, I've got a big, thick, old ledger book that I write stuff down in. I used to watch TV and write things that people would say and now I tend to get it more out of books and from conversations with people I meet.

I'm not a great fan of people who suddenly manage to pull out the whole track sounding perfect from a laptop. That doesn't feel like any kind of show to me.

The thing I've learned is it's good to restrict your palette somewhat. I will try and, say, use two or three instruments on one track. You learn, after a while, they're all good at certain things and other things fall outside of the natural areas they work well in, so I tend to stick with what they do best.

I still use a lot of cut-ups, I physically cut-up pieces of paper and stick them all together on another piece of paper then I'll think, Ah, that looks good, or shuffle them around a bit and then I'll photocopy it and then that's my lyrics.

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!