In the countryside, you're always hearing sheep, birds, tractors and farm equipment.
You realise that people do things differently to each other and, more and more, I realise that there's no right or wrong. You can be a pop star and singing cabaret, and the entertainment of it is your flamboyance, it is your attitude.
I've surfed on Lake Michigan.
I enjoy the sea more than I enjoy surfing.
I have problems with guitars, I hammer away at it sometimes and I also do little intimate picks, I'm always looking at new guitars and little extra tweaks and stuff, I like to mix it up a bit.
We were selling out venues, not just in London but also major cities in France and Germany before labels had even noticed what we were doing.
I like slightly obscure places, where the waves may not be world class, but you can tie some culture in with your surf trip.
Songs became little time periods of my life, little tales from certain periods, and you build these kingdoms and memories... they're all little personal relationships and places that I've stored in my head.
I went around driving myself to gigs everywhere, and eventually, people just kept coming back.
Coming from the U.K., you realize how quiet England is, and as soon as you get to America, it's really big and brash and loud out here, and South by Southwest was the epitome of that.
There was no grand scheme, no big push, there are things I would have done differently now but you make decisions on the hop and it takes you where you are.
Surfing and music have always been two separate sides of my life. I'm quite a fun-loving person most of the time, but I feel like I always get the serious side out when I'm playing music, and then I have fun the rest of the time when I get in the sea.
When you're playing guitar, it's the tiny little nuances that make the difference. For me, obviously, tunings is a huge one.
The music you play, it's never intended for other people, so it's quite amazing dealing with stuff now, because obviously any tracks I write, a lot of folks are going to hear. It definitely plays on my mind quite a lot.
In England, it's usually cold. So surfing is more of an adventure where you're floating around in a big, dark, stormy sea rather than the California notion of girls in bikinis on beaches. It's really going into the fray. I like it because it gives you the extra time and space you need to think.
I got thrust a guitar by my mum as a little kid and always played it. I sort of fell in and out of love with it, there were times when I hated it when I was ten and was forced to go to lessons.
I live in a small town so I get recognised a lot which is weird.
It's hard on the road, you don't get too much time to sit down and focus.
A lot of the bars are really nice to me now because they've heard me on the radio.
We've played all sorts of weird and wonderful places. You do all kinds of venues from heavy metal places in Germany to big ornate churches, and everything in between.
