Quotes

By the time I moved to New York, I had already been raised on eight years of Radio 1. The radio and music culture in England is not so racially segregated between rap, reggae, alternative or whatever. My dad [former band manager Laurence Ronson] also listened to a lot of funk and soul around the house, so when I moved to New York I started listening to a lot of Def Jam and [The Beatles] music. And whenever I came back to visit my dad, I would listen to a lot of Manchester music. That's why my tastes are so wide-ranging.

[on why he covered songs by The Smiths] I think if you're going to cover a song, you might as well cover your favorites. There's no point doing Jessica Simpson covers just for the purpose of not pissing anyone off!

I'm not religious in a complete strict observant type of way but as far as believing in the main tenets of the religion, things like that I am - I obviously fast on Yom Kippur, that kind of thing. It's important to me.

The people that inspire me are people like David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, and some of the great producers like Rick Rubin, Nigel Godrich, Quincy Jones and George Martin. I think you can find inspiration in anything, anything you hear that you like.