I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.
A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared.
I am about the arrangements and the layers of depth in the music.
My records do not require a lot of thought of 'What is this?' and 'What is that?' That would be too contrived for me.
I put out records to this day that are not necessarily in a sequence of anything. Some could be written a while back, some not. There is no set pattern.
My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.
For a long time, I couldn't actually deal with playing concerts; it was a totally alien concept to me, 'cause I was used to playing in clubs and dance halls.
You learn to read the audiences after a while, and there are all different kinds of gigs.
I don't feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That's what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it.
I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple.
Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.
As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.
Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play.
Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.
I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.
I don't think nostalgia has to be negative.
I educated myself. To me, school was boring.
I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.
I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.
I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn't mean anything to me.
I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that.
I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That's what I apply to everything.
I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me, not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand - I lived there before I was famous.
I'm not a rock singer and I don't want to be a rock singer. I'm not interested. It doesn't seem to get across.
If you're a pop singer, you don't need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.
It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.
Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.
My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing.
Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.
The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.
