There are very few things in the world that make me feel a feeling, really.
Aldous Harding
For like four or five months of my life I was too scared to like, move around and reach out for things because I was worried that I'd my hands would run into glass, like I could reach up and if I reached up and knocked on the air it would make a noise. I couldn't look at the sky because I was worried that I see a crack.
I definitely have a stage persona. I don't walk around scowling at people too often.
I don't have necessarily good taste. I have some really good taste and I have some really awful taste. I don't see the difference, because when you use them together they can work.
I like 'The Simpsons' like everybody else. But yeah - people think I'll always be super intense.
I really do feel like an unremarkable person trying really hard, openly, to do something interesting and to make something of value and pleasure.
So, when I was eight or nine my mom's friend gave her a big purple bag full of cassettes and I found Seals and Crofts' 'Summer Breeze'... When I found it I stopped going through the bag because I was like, well, I'm not going to find anything better than this. I just thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.
I'm actually hilarious.
As a kid I remember being frightened all of the time, and kind of sad. I was certainly troubled. But a lot of people were, y'know? I don't really know how to measure my trouble against somebody else's.
When it comes to a specific sound, I don't feel like there's something I need to worry about. I'd much rather do something creative and credible. Like, 'Who am I? What am I trying to say? What do I stand for?' I stand for all of it, because I feel all of it, like everybody.
All I ever wanted to do was to do something interesting.
You should see my stepdad's face when he's lifting something. It's the scariest thing I've ever seen! So you can't expect, just because I'm a potentially pretty person, that I won't allow myself to try out emotional states that might make me look ugly to some people.
I find that comforting and an equally purposeful way to think, that there's lots of ways to flex both your strengths and your weaknesses.
I've always been, like a lot of people, driven by fear. Always focusing on the fire on the rope, as opposed to what the rope is coming from.
I had a little radio next to the bed and I'd just listen to the top 10 - I mean, it was crap but I was young - and I would get up in the dark with the moon coming in through the window and I would just dance in my pajamas in the dark to the top 10. I didn't have a CD player... so it was kind of all I had, you know?
I'm focused on my future. I'm ignoring my past, apart from the bits that I draw from to help me focus on my future.
I'm definitely not above wanting to be liked. Because, I mean, that feels less... lonely? But to be honest, because it was never my dream, I live quite a pressure-less existence, y'know. And of course, that's not true, but it's partly true.
I can be anything.
When I was making my first record, I think I felt slightly trapped by my mind and my genre. I think in one way, that archaic language I was using came from a kind of mild obsession with the devil.
That's what I look for in music anyway: I want someone to confuse me to the point where I look inwards rather than at what they're doing.
When I discovered metaphor and what it meant, I got really excited. That was what really pushed me through into music.
My music's doing things, out there in the world, and that's a very positive feeling, you know? I haven't had a job I've been this good at or this excited about since I was a dog groomer!
We all want the same thing, love and acceptance. That's pretty much it. And what I've learned is that unless I'm happy with my side of the nickel, it can change violently - quickly.
I'm not much of a fan-girl.
I'm So Sorry' is probably one of my favorite songs that I've written... I wrote it very quickly and confidently. And then I didn't question it.
In my mind, I was never going to have the things I wanted if I played music for a living, unless I became a rock star.
I like reading things where someone's looked at what I do with some honesty, and maybe been challenged by it, and they have something to say that shows they've thought about it, even if they don't necessarily like it.
I think a bit of mystery is good, and I used to feel like an eccentric person pretending to be normal. But I am actually just a normal person seeming eccentric, by what I'm putting myself through.
I've got a bad rap for not being more charismatic between songs.
I don't really like to talk about what my songs are about.
Just like using an instrument, a song calls for different things.
I think about it as not so much 'I need to get it out of me,' it's not that my thoughts are poison, I just want to write good music.
I spend... too much time... in my own head.
I want to be well enough to enjoy the things I've made.
It's not a secret that I'm, like, 12 different people rolled into one. Like a lot of people are.
I'm optimistic but I'm also not stupid.
If you want to do this, you've got to last. You've got to be well enough to carry your ideas. I'm not saying I've got great ideas, but if I do I need to be able to deliver them.
Wales is a lot like New Zealand.
My family used to put on a small folk festival.
It was definitely a really lovely thing for me, doing 'Jools.'
I'm actually quite a shy person and it's becoming clearer to me. Sometimes I would like to disappear, maybe only for an hour.
I'm one of those people who's always changing. There's nothing wrong with it but it means I am a hard person to hold onto, I guess.
I'm trying to know who I am and be honest about it.
I don't think about why I do what I do, or why I started doing what I do, because I'm so obsessed with doing it right now, and what it means to me right now.
My head is full of songs I'm writing now, and things I am thinking now. I'm not very good at drawing on things that have happened, things I think might happen, or things I want to happen. I'm very much in right now.
I don't know a lot about art and music culture.
I enjoy doing the thing that I find interesting really well.
When you're young and starting out, a lot of artists think they know exactly who they are. There are others who come out in someone else's skin. They learn to take it off bit-by-bit and work out the core of what they're trying to say.
I don't need to hide behind anything because I'm more comfortable with myself.
It's funny. I change depending on what I'm around, and who I'm around. I've always been like that.
