Hozier
I had just discovered jazz, and I started singing in a kind of blues cover band at the age of 15. We called ourselves - it was a terrible name - the Blue Zoots. We couldn't actually get our hands on zoot suits, nor did we dress in blue. We did covers of Screamin' Jay Hawkins and kind of Blues Brothers repertoire stuff.
We have such a culture of discrimination and hatred, and one that has scapegoats and affects people so extremely. That's something that very easily crosses borders.
I was always drawn to gospel music and the roots of African-American music. It's the foundation of rock and roll.
When I write songs, I try to remove myself a little bit. Obviously, they're very personal to me, but it feels easier if I feel like I'm writing characters.
You grow up and recognise that in an educated, secular society, there's no excuse for ignorance. You have to recognise in yourself, and challenge yourself, that if you see racism or homophobia or misogyny in a secular society, as a member of that society, you should challenge it. You owe it to the betterment of society.
The best vocalists I can think of are female.
When you play to an audience, you come away energized. It's the promo that really breaks an artist. Some lad sitting on a box trying to create a drum sound in a dry little studio. Everyone goes, 'Great - okay, now on with my day.' You go back to the bus, and you weep.
I hate nightclubs, and I get fed up very quickly in crowded rooms. I enjoy being around people I know.
There are a lot of recurring themes that I resonated with when I read 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.'
Biggest musical influences would be people like Nina Simone and Tom Waits. A huge amount of writers like Leslie Feist and Paul Simon.
For me growing up, I had a Christian upbringing, and I just noticed this Catholic influence in school.
Being in a studio is quite a creative and energetic process.
I used to almost not look forward to recording, because it was like, 'Okay, what am I going to have to sacrifice?'
One of my first festivals was Oxygen 2006. It had this amazing lineup with the Arctic Monkeys on their first or second album, the Strokes, Kings of Leon, the Magic Numbers and then the Who and James Brown. I waited in the pit for a good eight hours to see James Brown.
I love making music, but if you make something that inspires somebody else to make something, without getting too airy-fairy, you've contributed to the zeitgeist in some way, and that's just an amazing feeling.
I've definitely received a lot of support in Nashville; it's a huge music town. I like country music. Like any genre I'm largely unfamiliar with, there are elements I really enjoy and elements that go over my head.
I think it all started with Nina Simone. When I was maybe seven or eight, I used to listen to one of her albums every night before I went to sleep. For me, her voice was everything.
There is no singer I can think of who can touch Ella Fitzgerald. And when Billie Holiday sings, she's merciless about it. Her voice has just this immaculate sadness - even in happy songs, there was something that was so broken about it.
I always thought of myself as a very, very obscure artist.
I love Muddy Waters and Nina Simone. I also watched 'The Blues Brothers' movie over and over.
I never wrote music for the mainstream.
My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me.
Blues is a very physical music.
There are a few Irish writers who have a very strong influence on me, especially on the 'Take Me to Church' EP.
I just hate getting my hair cut.
I feel my duty is to make music.
I'm uncomfortable with selfies and status updates documenting mundane pieces of my life, which I don't think should be of interest to anyone else.
The myth of fame and the myth of success is cultivated because it is monetisable and it is profitable.
I'm always eager to make new music.
The way I did the first album... the way I wrote 'Church'... was just to trust my instincts with the music and let it kind of do what it does.
I didn't even have that many close LGBT friends or anything like that, but I suppose it was growing up and becoming aware of how you are in a cultural landscape that is blatantly homophobic... you turn around and say, 'Why did I grow up in a homophobic place? Why did I grow up in a misogynistic place?'
There was a moment, a few weeks after I signed, that it actually hit me. I was signed to a major label.
It was a rural upbringing by the seaside. A real quiet place surrounded by fields. I had to travel into town for school and stuff like that.
The main thing is, I can't stay up late partying when I'm on tour. That's not good for my voice or my health in general.
I'm quite tame as touring musicians go.
It's a surreal experience filming promotion with Ryan Seacrest and meeting Top 40 pop artists.
Religion wasn't imposed on me.
By the time I was in my teens, I was listening to Delta blues and jazz.
I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties.
I spent quite a bit of time in choirs, growing up, and in the world-touring music group Anuna.
Rarely do I finish a song lyrically before I have a musical idea there, but then again, rarely ever would I finish a song musically before starting the lyrical ideas. So a lot of the time, they come in tandem, or they just come at a glance.
I find lyrics can come at any time during the day, as can music.
Especially on the road, it's very hard to find time to actually sit down and write.
I love a good party - but I'm not all that attracted to a celebrity lifestyle.
There's not a lot of room for thinking in popular culture; there's not a lot of room for being conflicted.
The public discourse online is not done through the polite language of debate.
I figured the songs wouldn't make much of a splash. I didn't think 'Take Me To Church' would play on the radio or get in the charts, and I didn't think about dealing with a global audience.
I've been a total Tom Waits dork for a long, long time.
I remember writing lyrics for 'Take Me to Church' for a long time before I even had a song in mind for. It's not that I was trying to write that song for a year, but sometimes you just kind of collect lyrical and musical ideas and don't actually complete the song until you feel like they work together and have a home.