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" You might as well acknowledge what came before, because you can never do something wholly new. It's not unoriginal to make your references clear. "

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" I always love going to New York. "

" 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. "

" My dad was an actor, and he always said that work was work; you can't turn your nose up at it. We didn't have much money when I was growing up, and he had this real work ethic, which I inherited. "

" 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. "

" 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 a fan of taking too long in the studio. I always do one vocal take and jump out of the control room, and people push me back in... It's a real turn-off to hear things that are too polished. I feel like I've almost fought for the right to be that kind of musician - we used to be on a major label, and now we're on an indie. "

" I actually do bits of my writing in sort of incidental spaces - when I'm traveling on the Tube or on a bus. More often than not, it's a reaction to how you feel about something, and if you're sitting down and concentrating on, 'I must write something,' then you can't have a truthful reaction. "

" We had no money, my dad was out of work a lot, and we never owned a house. It was very hand-to-mouth. "

" Taking someone else's language and fitting it into your own speech - you learn a lot about other people's brains, doing that. "

" I think the two are kind of synonymous for me; songwriting is like my form of diary making. It's how I process the world. Without doing that, I feel kind of lost. The characters that I play often come out in the songs and the challenges that they face, albeit in an abstract way. "

" 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. "

" The pop industry is so well-practised at channelling young people's creative energy that I think it gets abused. "

" We all have these shades in our nature: it's a spectrum within all of us. "

" 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 played trumpet for Noah and the Whale a couple of times. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 have a classical music background. I studied violin and trumpet. "

" 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 take them both seriously - I don't particularly want to be an 'actor-musician.' I want to play the great challenging parts, to be right for the part, rather than just, 'Oh, he can play the fiddle.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm not that politically educated. "

" In my early twenties, the whole experience of going on tour was like losing myself in this slightly wild environment. "

" My dad was working class. "

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

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

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