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

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

I can't remember a 'best gig,' and my brain doesn't work in absolute terms like that.

I really love a lot of early Sixties R&B, rock n' roll, and I love performing songs that have that power and soulfulness.

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

My dad was working class.

The truth is there's always a hum of people playing folk music in cities.

Folk music - and what people are now perceiving as being folk music - is music that's quite close to the ground. The songs sound quite old, even if they're new. They sound like they've been sung by different people for years.

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

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.

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.

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 did a lot of theater as a young actor in my early twenties, and my first few records really came from writing songs through the rehearsal processes.

There's something amazing about 'Fawlty Towers' and 'The Office' only being two series. I think, when you really nail it, you don't need to do more than two or three.

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.

The world that I know and the world that I come from is from the arts, and my wife's an artist, and I've been a musician since I left college, and there's tons of musicians I'd love to play.

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

I just said, casually, 'You know, I passed up on auditioning for Einstein.' And my friend was like, 'You idiot, you have to do it!' She made me do it. I sent the tapes off assuming that somebody would say, 'Ha ha, very funny.'

I'm a huge David Hockney fan.

I imagine that, for most people, acting isn't something they think is a viable option, whereas for me, it was the most viable option. No adults around me knew how to do anything else.

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

Bob Dylan has and Einstein had their own way of perceiving the universe and translating it for us.

My dad was an actor, and he made it all seem quite magical. It felt like a slightly subversive thing, telling stories, when all of my other friends' parents were builders or bank clerks. It's always seemed quite magical 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.