I'm a huge fan of The Chemical Brothers and the Ninja Tune label and a lot of the stuff that they put out like DJ Shadow but I think, out of all of them, Leftism really just excited my musical brain in terms of the way that they mixed real instruments with dance tracks.
I would never pigeon hole myself stylistically because I just don't know what I am going to want to do next.
For me, success is being happy. I used to think it was lots of houses, lots of record sales, lots of stories to tell. But some massive life changes, getting a divorce and my dad dying, led to a huge period of reflection.
My experience of being a singer and performer is there is something meditative and very positive about singing, just resonating the inside of your body.
I really liked writing rhyming poems and plays.
I lived in L.A. for a year when I was four - my dad was doing a sabbatical at UCLA - so it always remained quite a familiar place.
Basically, my mum and dad bought me a CD player for my 14th birthday. They didn't really listen to music at all, but my dad had a couple of tapes that he'd listen to, like Tom Lehrer. My dad was a physicist and Tom Lehrer was like this really weird Harvard class professor, who was really cool because he was also a satirist and pianist.
I was very into tribal techno and used to go and really lose myself in great dance music.
The topography of L.A. is fascinating.
I really enjoy tech, but I'm not voracious - I'll find stuff because I want to use it, not because I'm interested in what's out there. It's a sort of necessity relationship.
