Quotes

[on being nominated for a British Male Solo Artist award] It's very nice to be nominated for something you enjoy doing anyway. But awards and things like that don't hold a lot of sentimental value to me. Having something in solid form telling me I'm the best or whatever - it wouldn't change the way I pursue music or the way I make records.

The papers, you know, they're always gonna just make stuff up. They think it's in the public interest.

Obviously, with your first album, you want to make sure you are really happy with it.

Three thousand people singing back your songs is an incredible feeling.

I would love to have been born in the '60s.

Bob Dylan is great. I've been compared to him a lot. I think when people see a person on stage with a guitar they just think, 'Bob Dylan!'

Sometimes Lennon needed McCartney and sometimes Simon needed Garfunkel. You'd go mad doing everything on your own.

If a song is longer than three and a half minutes, it'll need something to keep you entertained.

At school, people would say I should go on 'Britain's Got Talent,' but I would never have done that because it doesn't seem genuine; it doesn't feel natural.

My mum was a single mum on the dole.

One Direction? The young girls will grow up and forget about 'em.

It can be disheartening to see acts that don't necessarily have any input on their own material to do so well in the charts.

Before I was 12 years old, I had no interest in music; I was just into football. Then I heard Don McLean's 'Vincent' come on at the end of an episode of 'The Simpsons.' You know when you hear something and you don't understand why you like it, you just do? That's how I felt. I just thought, 'I want to be able to write songs like that.'

YouTube is a good way to discover new music now because it comes up with that thing at the side with other artists you might like.

I don't care about the word 'pop'. The Beatles were pop; it's just what's popular.

I play music because I love it and I'll keep playin' till I'm old.

I don't need an award to inspire me to keep making music.

As a songwriter, it's very hard to listen to music that's not coming from the heart and soul, personally.