“My mum wanted me to go to university.”
“You know, people always ask, 'What are you like offstage?' And I always say, 'Well, I'm completely normal and mellow.'”
“Touring, and being in a band, it's almost like the other stuff, the other parts of life, get put on hold.”
“What I really like seeing from the stage is people having their own moments, when people are doing some performance of their own.”
“At the beginning of my career I was going through a really weird phase of dressing in boys clothes. I would only wear one American Apparel T-shirt and shorts and brogues the whole year round. Not the same T-shirt, obviously, but one style of American Apparel T-shirt. I think I was going through a tomboy stage.”
“I saw 'The Artist.' It's really beautiful and it's all done to the letter with all the silent film techniques. The costumes were amazing and the dog is so good.”
“I'm quite glad I never learned to play the guitar, because I think I'd write songs that were more classically structured. As it is, I've had to create my own way of writing, which isn't typical. Everything's a big crescendo.”
“The release of 'Lungs' was so hard. It was terrifying, because it was the first time doing everything. The first experiences of media exposure were almost paralysing. I spent a lot of time crying on the floor of the studio - it sent me a bit mad.”
“I got to live out my 11-year-old fantasies - I got to go on stage with Green Day. Billie Joe called my name from the stage. 'Dookie' was the first album I ever bought. I covered the whole of 'Nimrod' and he'd heard it. That was like the 11-year-old girl dreamed.”
“I think I just get excited by music, and, like, singing is a very physical thing. It releases endorphins in your body. You're using almost muscle in there, and I think that adrenaline really helps to kind of make the songs fresh every time.”