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" I'm not really interested in myself in my writing. I can't see myself in the songs, even though I know different parts of me are there. "

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" I've always identified as an actor. That's what I set out to do. "

" I guess I started writing poetry and stuff and then decided to set it to music. "

" A lot of the work I've done has involved playing quite sympathetic characters. "

" I grew up playing classical violin and a lot of Bach and Mozart and the things that Einstein loved. "

" My father was an actor. Both of my older brothers are actors. My younger sister is an actress. For me, that's my job; that's my craft. But then all through school and through drama school, I was gigging and running nights and playing in bands, and I just didn't want to let that go. "

" I find it hugely exciting to be dealing with another writer's language. "

" I like the idea of letting the music do its own work and the stories being more expressionful - if that's a word - in people's imagination. I've just got a thing about people and songs telling you how you should feel. "

" I fell in love with the legend of Paul Robeson as a kid. My dad would tell me all these amazing stories about his life and, bizarrely, ended up singing to Robeson on his deathbed. "

" Weirdly, my dad didn't want me to become an actor, he was always quite resistant to it. He told me as much many times. That just made it more attractive to me. "

" It's not in the mainstream media, but across towns, it is amazing how there are small groups of people getting together and forming artistic collectives - they may not be being overtly political, but I'd say by channelling their energy into community projects, that's a valid political statement. "

" I'm not that politically educated. "

" I had to learn how to work in a studio at first because it's a totally different creative environment to the 'bedroom recordings' I'd done before, where I could translate my own ideas without having to explain them to anyone. "

" My guitar is a 1934 National Trojan. They call it a resonator, which is the guitar guys played in the honky-tonks before amplification. It's very loud. It's the type of guitar that Son House and Robert Johnson played. "

" If you're in a garage band, it's about being better than the band in the next-door garage. But in the folk tradition, it's more a vibe of sharing. "

" The Band mean a lot to me in terms of what I aspire to achieve with my group, as the music they made went against the fashion of the time. "

" I don't really write songs. They're just there anyway, chiseling away at the atmosphere, and suddenly they're like, 'Oh, thanks for coming. Thanks for finding me. We'll share each other now.' "

" It's interesting to marry American musical traditions with the subtlety of English-style storytelling and folk singer-songwriters like Martin Carthy and Bert Jansch - they're two heritages that are distinct but also cross over on so many levels. "

" I first came across Langhorne Slim when I saw him play live, and he's an incredibly infectious performer. The way he works the crowd is mind-blowing. You can listen to his music without really listening to his lyrics, but it pays off if you do. "

" Diane Cluck is part of the anti-folk movement in New York. She's got a really haunting voice, and she usually sings in the pentatonic scale. "

" I think everyone in their 30s looks back at their 20s and thinks, 'Oh God, if I'd just done this and this, and not done that.' "

" I like really bad puns - proper, red-top, nasty puns - I find them funny. "

" What's quite nice about this whole folk movement is that it's born out of genuine friendship. And nobody's infringing on anybody's space. "

" It's great being an actor and being part of a play or a film where there's usually quite a big group of people who are collaborating, and your job is really to fit in and share that energy. With music, because I write the songs, it's a broader, more abstract process. "

" I've been cast in a lot of comedies. I've done things like multi-cam sitcoms: you know, 'Seinfeld' type... not as good as 'Seinfeld,' but that kind of thing. I love that stuff. "

" If you're trying to do something wholly new, it's hard to fully trust it. But if you use forms that have come before, it lends your music weight and authority. It's also a way to acknowledge that it's not just you who's feeling these things. The emotions are coming through you from a whole history. "

" When I first moved to London, there was talk of a folk revival, with annoying names like nu-folk that made me feel slightly ill. "

" Loads of verses don't make it into the finished song. "

" Music always gets bumped until I have some time to get around to it. "

" I'm obsessed with pilgrimages. I love following old routes, imagining the consciousness of those who walked them. "

" I think the truest things come from silence, but everything's always so clogged up with noise. If everything falls away, and you can truly listen to someone, giving them yourself and generosity, you can truly lose yourself in what they're saying. Like, not impose your ideas on what they're saying, but really tune into them. "