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" I never wrote music for the mainstream. "

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" One of my biggest influences of all time would be somebody like Tom Waits. David Bowie is another huge influence. I'm also a big fan of St. Vincent and Leslie Feist. "

" I know I'm not the kind of music that's going to have tons of screaming fans, and I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. I just want to do as good a job as I can. "

" I think it is important to differentiate between lip service towards something and actually making change. "

" I don't like false happy endings, and I don't think the real world is such a forgiving place. "

" Some of the earlier stuff I did in studio with producers was very pop-directed, which I was uncomfortable with. "

" I try to be happy. I try to face things without regret or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can. "

" I was essentially raised on blues music. My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me. "

" I spent quite a bit of time in choirs, growing up, and in the world-touring music group Anuna. "

" I've definitely received a lot of support in Nashville; it's a huge music town. I like country music. Like any genre I'm largely unfamiliar with, there are elements I really enjoy and elements that go over my head. "

" I didn't know what to expect of real America. What shocked me was the diversity of it and how different every city is. But also just how polite and usually good-willed and optimistic most Americans are. "

" For me growing up, I had a Christian upbringing, and I just noticed this Catholic influence in school. "

" The best vocalists I can think of are female. There is no singer I can think of who can touch Ella Fitzgerald. And when Billie Holiday sings, she's merciless about it. Her voice has just this immaculate sadness - even in happy songs, there was something that was so broken about it. "

" It was a rural upbringing by the seaside. A real quiet place surrounded by fields. I had to travel into town for school and stuff like that. "

" I'm quite tame as touring musicians go. "

" Growing up, I always saw the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. The history speaks for itself, and I grew incredibly frustrated and angry. I essentially just put that into my words. "

" I was never academically driven in English, but, again, Tom Waits is a perfect example of an influence. He writes so immaculately and paints so perfectly a world and the characters within it. There are writers like that who are my influences: vivid and gifted storytellers. "

" I think my parents took me to see Sting when I was very, very young. "

" Rarely do I finish a song lyrically before I have a musical idea there, but then again, rarely ever would I finish a song musically before starting the lyrical ideas. So a lot of the time, they come in tandem, or they just come at a glance. "

" Governments do not care about your Facebook-assembled opinion. Incompetent politicians don't read your tweets; there are reasons for them being out of touch. Change does not come about for 'likes' on a page, though the ideas for it may start there. "

" There's not a lot of room for thinking in popular culture; there's not a lot of room for being conflicted. "

Popular Culture

" Biggest musical influences would be people like Nina Simone and Tom Waits. A huge amount of writers like Leslie Feist and Paul Simon. "

" Truth be told, I'm not all that comfortable with celebrity culture. That was always something that baffled me, the obsession over fame. I don't think that's a reason why anyone should get into making music. "

" Love isn't any one good thing; it's a very, very strange mishmash of emotions. Your love for somebody is, oftentimes, informed by the terrible things you might believe about yourself, and comparatively, the person you see them as is everything that you're not. "

" I used to almost not look forward to recording, because it was like, 'Okay, what am I going to have to sacrifice?' "

" Being in a studio is quite a creative and energetic process. "

" Much of social media can be seen as the 'News of me.' It's not so much a platform for connecting and sharing as it is a platform for advertising the idea of yourself you want to portray to others: the image of yourself you want to project. "

" The main thing is, I can't stay up late partying when I'm on tour. That's not good for my voice or my health in general. "

" I think it's very hard to write things about being joyful. I find that quite difficult. I think when you're happy, you don't want to write songs; you just want to enjoy being happy. "

" We all run the risk of thinking that people have common sense sometimes. "

" I like playing with light and shade. I like saying awful things in very pretty ways. "