Quotes

I remember having piano lessons when I was very young, and I never practised. It was just boring, it was all classical music, and I didn't like it. I always had to do exams, you know these theory exams, where they make you sing, god it was so humiliating! Anyway, so eventually because I never practised, my parents made me give up and said they don't want to pay for the lessons anymore but of course, being a typical kind of difficult teenager as soon as I stopped having lessons I had actually wanted to play the piano. So I started teaching myself.

I see it as my mission to make the piano as much of an icon as the guitar.

Critics talk an unbelievable amount of shit. But then so do bands.

We didn't take time to sit back and enjoy our success with Hopes and Fears; we lost sight of the need to keep working on our relationship. There was a lot of tension, confusion and just a frustration with ourselves, and instead of taking time off and coming back refreshed, we took all that pent-up, dark energy into the studio with us. The atmosphere was pretty heavy, we argued a lot about the music and, of course, the songs were so intense - all of which added to the vibe.

For me, the seminal '80s moment was hearing the Pet Shop Boys's "Always On My Mind". At that time, pop music was a wasteland - Kylie (Kylie Minogue) and Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

When I first got into music I was really into the Pet Shop Boys for some reason, and so I got interested in the Fairlight, and the DX7, and the whole late eighties thing. I really got into MIDI. I always had half an eye on digital things. But I was living at home and I got a QY10 when they first came out. I thought that was one of the most amazing things I'd ever heard. I programmed a whole bunch of bass lines and backing tracks for some sort imaginary concert I was going to play - even though I wasn't even in a band. In fact I was about 12. Although I've always been into that side of it I'm certainly not an expert. The same applies to analog stuff. If you put me in front of a big modular synth I wouldn't know where to start. But I do like a good simple old synth where you can change the sound with a few knobs and where you can hear the sound reacting to what you're doing. I'm just a songwriter; someone who likes making music rather than being a real tech head. So as long I can get what I want out of a synth, be it an old analog one or a modern digital one, then I'm happy, and I've just about got enough knowledge to do that.

[2004] We all like a beer and we are certainly not advocates of temperance, but why would you put yourself through the hell of addiction just to be rock'n'roll?

[on Noel Gallagher's comment that "Traditionally speaking, the three biggest twats in any band are the singer, the keyboardist and the drummer. I don't need to say anything else."] We don't really care. I think he's a c**t to be honest. He was in a band that was brilliant in the '90s and now they're just not important anymore.