Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's a privilege to be from England and be able to come over to America and have people listening to music and really enjoying it.
I listen to other people's stuff and, more and more, you realise how much is layered and how many different guitar parts there are.
I don't really like encouraging people to go on the Internet too much, we're constantly distracted with the Internet and computers.
I'm one of those artists who doesn't really believe in fame. You can be a normal person these days, you don't need celebrity appeal.
People may say I'm difficult but I'm not. I'm a bit shy but it's funny how I can sing in front of an audience and get up on a stage.
As a musician you're always your own worst critic and you're always digging into your songs and evaluating your own self-worth of things.
If you had told me many years ago that I'd have been headlining Longitude, or festivals like it, I would have thought it was unimaginable.
I think New York City is a lot more European than the rest of America; it's much easier for an English person to wrap their head around it.
We were selling out venues, not just in London but also major cities in France and Germany before labels had even noticed what we were doing.
The world is a very noisy place and so I don't need to shout about things. There are so many people shouting and a lot of people get lost in it.
I just write about myself all the time, which is a funny one, because I don't really like sharing much stuff with other people, apart from music.
There's force-feeding people synthesised music, then there's a skill in technically being able to play an instrument, even if that is some electronic pad.
It's great to be part of the whole Ibiza Rocks vibe. Ibiza's always had a big gap when it comes to bands with guitars so it's great to be included really.
With music you spend so much time standing on stage in front of an audience you get a false sense of your own importance. It's worth keeping that in check.
There was no grand scheme, no big push, there are things I would have done differently now but you make decisions on the hop and it takes you where you are.
In my late teens, I fell out of love with music - you know how kids are, when you're encouraged to do something, you rebel. But then I picked it back up again.
So many people have told me that it's quite different playing out in the States, and obviously, as a musician, touring in the States is kind of the Holy Grail.
My motive has always been just to be who I am, and play what I love- if that doesn't get me anywhere then at least it wasn't because I tried to be something I'm not.
We've played all sorts of weird and wonderful places. You do all kinds of venues from heavy metal places in Germany to big ornate churches, and everything in between.
A live show is a room full of sound and people and now you have technology where people can film it and take it away and all that is lost afterwards but they have a souvenir.
I live inside my own brain, most of the time. So where I am physically doesn't really bother me - if the physical place sparks something in my imagination, then it's a good place.
People have to learn... what do you really want from a live show? Do you want people to stand there and entertain you or to challenge themselves and you? It's live music, it's alive.
Coming from the U.K., you realize how quiet England is, and as soon as you get to America, it's really big and brash and loud out here, and South by Southwest was the epitome of that.
Mumford & Sons have really opened up everyone's ears to music with instruments again, acoustic-based music... it's reassuring for people like me who have been brought up on acoustic guitar.
I have problems with guitars, I hammer away at it sometimes and I also do little intimate picks, I'm always looking at new guitars and little extra tweaks and stuff, I like to mix it up a bit.
I got thrust a guitar by my mum as a little kid and always played it. I sort of fell in and out of love with it, there were times when I hated it when I was ten and was forced to go to lessons.
We'd get residencies in the local pubs. It was just an excuse to have a free tab at the bar, and then at some point people started chucking me a few quid for it. There was no game plan to any of it.
I'm not prolific, I go over stuff and it goes for me and sometimes against me. I'm annoyed that I don't do enough stuff off-the-cuff. It's a difficult thing to do something quickly and stand behind it.
I've always thought I crossed this really weird gap between the pop world and some slightly more left-field singer-songwriter music, but everyone's always comparing me with Ed Sheeran. It's frustrating.
Songs became little time periods of my life, little tales from certain periods, and you build these kingdoms and memories... they're all little personal relationships and places that I've stored in my head.
John Martyn is my biggest hero. My mom got me into his music when I was a kid. I've looked up to him more than anyone as a songwriter. And Bert Jansch is one of the pillars of acoustic music, the holy grail.
I think music piracy is forcing many people to look at the live aspect of the record industry as an income and in many ways that's what sets apart good music and musicians from the fly by night pop sensations.
I think there are definitely positives when you go back to the familiar, because it's something you don't have to think about when you know the place. But sometimes on the other hand, it can be quite unchallenging.
The music you play, it's never intended for other people, so it's quite amazing dealing with stuff now, because obviously any tracks I write, a lot of folks are going to hear. It definitely plays on my mind quite a lot.
You realise that people do things differently to each other and, more and more, I realise that there's no right or wrong. You can be a pop star and singing cabaret, and the entertainment of it is your flamboyance, it is your attitude.
I think the most frustrating thing is when people... sometimes people are a bit lazy and they don't listen to something, and they'll just say you sound like something else and it's quite clear that you don't, I think that's frustrating.
Surfing and music have always been two separate sides of my life. I'm quite a fun-loving person most of the time, but I feel like I always get the serious side out when I'm playing music, and then I have fun the rest of the time when I get in the sea.
What I love about the tours is the day to dayness of it all.. you meet so many people and travel so much in such a short period of time and it's always so concentrated and focused that it stops you thinking beyond the box too much. I love things that absorb you completely.
I like to believe a true fan of music or an artist has a genuine respect for what the artist does and has a distinct understanding of their actions. In that buying an album they are helping the artist to continue making music. It's hard because everyone wants something to be free.
In England, it's usually cold. So surfing is more of an adventure where you're floating around in a big, dark, stormy sea rather than the California notion of girls in bikinis on beaches. It's really going into the fray. I like it because it gives you the extra time and space you need to think.
I meet a lot of people who are awkward around me now. I was always embarrassed about that; the more attention I got, the less I wanted it and the more it would manifest in a physical way and I would be hunched over about it. I'm just starting to realise now that it's not my problem, it's somebody else's problem.
I never understood how one could write a whole book: It is so technically challenging, and it's incredible the way writers put entire worlds inside of them on such a large scale. I tend to have that same feeling when I listen to music - it daunts me and makes me feel quite unsettled listening to so much talent and ambition.
Surfing and music have always been two completely separate things in my life, and a lot of people, especially in the UK, don't really get surfing very much. They think it's the Californian dream. They're like, "Oh, so you're a surfer and you're this and that," and it's like, I go surfing because I like the outdoors. In England it's freezing cold, and it's usually dark and raining and it's the middle of winter, and you do it because it's invigorating. It's like going on a walk in some remote place on the planet. It's really - it's not very glamorous.