Festivals are the best because you can't control anything, and for a control freak like me, that's a wonderful experience.Collection: Experience
I was studying primary school education. I was going to be a teacher. I was going to get my teaching qualification and have that as my safety net and then tackle the music industry.Collection: Teacher
I'm just here to do the best that I can do with the music that I make, and I'm not making it for any other reason than I feel like I have to. These ideas have to be created because they're in me, and if I leave them in my head, I'll go crazy.
I wanted to create a body of work that I was proud of. It's come from honesty and integrity, without forcing anything from myself, the ideas had to come instinctively and organically. Whether that translates to people in that way, it's kind of out of my hands now.
I had a passion and a soul in me that was screaming to be heard, and I had to let them out in as honest and challenging a way as I could.
When I was a kid and writing more acoustic songs, I was doing it more for the attention than for the love of the music. I knew I needed to change something because I wasn't having fun and wasn't liking the songs I was writing.
If you can fool every single member of the audience into thinking you're confident and you deserve to be there, everyone will jump on your side.
It's amazing to be nominated for the Brits' Critics' Choice Award 2016. It's such a significant award that highlights the importance of new music, so it's a genuine honour to have been nominated alongside some other incredible new acts from the U.K.
I'm always working on new stuff.
Every single pair of trousers I own has a plectrum in it.
For me, creating music is just as relaxing as sitting down and doing nothing.
My grandfather was a church organist and would sing in choirs and was a musical genius to a certain extent.
The music in my family has always been there; it's been quite an obvious trait that seems to have trickled down the bloodline.
I would go to school and try to talk to my mates about music and playing instruments and stuff, and they would turn around and go, 'What're you talking about? Shut up.' And I realised that I was the weird one.
I remember, from aged six to nine, I was loud and abrasive and loved making noise and loved playing instruments and doing all those things. When I was about ten, I realised I could get attention by doing that, so when I was eleven, I started writing songs.
People don't want to hear the same song 12 times in a row on an album.
I don't think there's any such thing as perfection. But I'm a perfectionist. I don't believe in the idea of perfection, but I will strive to achieve it.
I've always said that I would only ever release something that I would want to listen to as a fan.
I feel the best way to respect my audience is to not give them what they expect from me... 'cause it's fun that way.
I remember listening to 'Songs In The Key Of Life' as a kid. Stevie Wonder has an ability to manipulate pop into something globally obtainable. Anyone can listen and enjoy it because there's something for everyone. That woke me up to the possibilities of pop music.
I was a huge pop music fan as a kid, but the bands I was into were like 5ive and N-Sync. It was like watching a cartoon. There was so much going on, and the production was so well mixed. Stevie Wonder was able to give you those melodies and production but back it up with such creative integrity and real musicianship and artistry.
There's a stigma attached to 'pop music,' like it's a taboo word. It used to make my skin crawl when people said it, and I'd say, 'I'm not a pop star! I want to be a respected musician!' But I think people have changed the way they think about it.
My guitar setup is inspired by Stevie Ray Vaughan.
I saved up my pocket money when I was about five or six years old. I just wanted to buy a CD, and at that age, I didn't care about what it was, and I ended up buying 'The Teletubbies Say 'Eh-Oh!'' I started off strong.
I'm fascinated by film scores, especially film scores for children's movies because they have to be able to entertain an audience that isn't interested in music yet.
I listen to podcasts when I run because it means my mind still gets stimulated by something else.
I find myself working ten steps ahead of where I actually am on my laptop or keyboard, but I know what the ten steps are. I just haven't got to them yet.
I want my music to sound good on whatever people are listening - laptop speakers, those crappy little white ones you get with your PC.
With every milestone that I've come across, there's always been a little note at the bottom that's said, 'Don't worry, there's another milestone coming up.'
Performing outside is always kind of strange. Usually, you can't hear something, whether it's your voice or instrument, but it's a fun challenge.
The most important thing for me is to have as much control over what's going on in front of me as I possibly can, so because of that, I don't play to a click track, and I don't have anything on the grid. Everything is triggered by me. Everything is played by me. Everything is within my control.
I get inspired by the sounds that evoke an emotion from me. That's what I am drawn to; that's what turns me on.
The best music is the music which brings out something of you that you didn't know was there before, or you did know was there but had avoided.
I spent my entire childhood going 'look at me, look at me, look at me,' before realising I needed someone to look at me for more than just what I was showing off for.
I got to a point when I was 20 that I dropped out of university because I felt I didn't have any purpose, and I wanted to find a fire in me.
The thing that was most constant when I was growing up was just complete support and adoration from my parents.
I would sing around the house, and I would always play on things just because instruments were always there, but I didn't show any genius as a child. I wasn't a prodigy or anything like that.
My mum would play Stevie Wonder around the house, and I remember just loving the songs and feeling so blown away by how much was going on.
I genre-hop quite a lot. I love manipulating genre and deconstructing it and making it irrelevant. Genreless music is great because it means you get to write in any genre that you like.
I like making sounds and putting it together, I'm not just a singer or a producer.
I've purposely made my music to be challenging and different. There's some electronics, R&B, blues, Motown, country, jazz and lots of soul.
My mission is to just keep creating music. If it helps people in some way, then I'm doing the right thing.
I grew up with parents who really encouraged me to listen to as much music as I could.
I've always found myself to be most free and creatively open when I'm on my own.
I didn't do myself any favours. I would be resentful of my own ideas even before I'd said them out loud. But music was always the most consistent and peaceful thing for me. So I taught myself to be my harshest critic rather than just a mean voice in the back of my head.
I wish I was a prolific writing wondrous boy genius - I wish I was Stevie Wonder - but I wasn't. I was me. I wrote terrible songs about girls I was head-over-heels about. As soon as a pretty girl looks at me, that's it - I'm in love, and I should probably write a song about it!
I got my first laptop, what I learned to do everything on, when I was 17 or 18, and I had no idea what I was doing. I'd only ever produced on an 8-track before. When I was about 13 and writing songs, I would write on that. It would literally be eight tracks, and that's all I had.
The 'Remnants' EP was the first time I got to really explore myself as a producer, and I got the insane idea of doing it on my own in my future career.
I've been naturally quick at learning things, and I learn by doing things, so if I sit beside someone who is actively doing something, I look at how they do it and absorb the way in which they do something and find my own comfortable way of reimagining that, or using certain techniques in my own way.
I don't listen to much music on the go because I tend either to be writing my own music or wanting a break from the music around me.