It strikes me as very odd for someone to think, 'You know what, if I put on a bikini, I may shift some more records,' but it happens. If people are comfortable with that, fine, but it's not something that would ever cross my mind.

Like a lot of young people growing up in the middle of nowhere, I was desperate to leave my small town behind, but music reconnected me to my roots.

When you make an album, you have to decide how much you want to give away; you have to decide how much you want to open up. Because the more you open up the more rewarding it can be but the more dangerous it can be. If you really open up and it gets panned it's really painful.

I have always been a great fan of albums that are cathartic and that you can listen to them together and you can relate to them as a group of people or as friends.

Most of my friends in London are musicians, but the ones in Scotland have proper jobs.

I've always been a huge fan of Beck.

I'd love to go to Easter Island, Hawaii, Iceland and Antarctica.

Skiing fast feels like complete freedom to me.

If I can be somewhere with sunshine and have bare feet and a book, I'm happy.

I've never been one to indulge in out and out depression when it comes to songwriting.

You know there's this really strange mystique about Simon and Garfunkel, when they use the amazing mandolin and all the percussive stuff. It sometimes sounds very global.

But I'm pretty lucky with my voice. When I first started touring I went to see a woman to give me some coaching on how not to lose my voice. And she was just saying really your voice is a muscle so if you're using it all the time you should actually come back from tour with a stronger voice than you left with. And that's really how I find it.

I've always felt at home in America. Obviously, there's down sides to everywhere - the politics of America can be hard to take but it's not great here either. I really love the country's landscape and I've travelled it many times.

I think there is optimism to what I write.

I've always tried to avoid music being direct therapy, and I've always found there's a power when you write something that can have its own interpretation - although I'm not being intentionally evasive.

I always try to travel as light as possible. I feel really embarrassed having loads of luggage.

I don't let housekeeping in when I stay in hotels. It cuts down on all the caustic cleaning products and aggressive water usage, and I never use the little plastic bottles of toiletries they set out.

It's unacceptable to tour using non-environmentally friendly fuel when there are alternatives.

Let's face it - the electric guitar is way sexier than the acoustic.

My experience of being a singer and performer is there is something meditative and very positive about singing, just resonating the inside of your body.

I've never been a confessional writer.

I'm not image-obsessed.

On tour with me, it's like fluffy-bunny land. Everyone loves every-one else.

When you're in the city, all you see is people. It gets more competitive, people become more introverted.