'm really proud of 'Sad, Sad World' because it manages to state a very complex paradox of an emotion that I experienced when I had children, which is this great happiness and this great intensity, but with that intensity comes a deeper understanding of the world.
I think you realise how terrifying and scary the world is when you're bringing kids into it.
A lot of people are surprised by my love of heavy metal. I fell in love with heavy metal almost before any other genre. One of the first concerts I went to was a Donnington Monsters Of Rock concert.
I love traditional shoes. I have a nice couple of pairs of traditional Oxford-style shoes, a pair of Edward Green shoes, and I aspire to a pair of hand-made George Cleverley shoes. Mark McNairy, all those are amazing.
I've worn some particularly baggy jeans and cowboys boot combinations after coming back from Austin, Texas. This was ill-advised.
Now I have other demands on my time that are not flexible, I just can't wander into the studio at 2 A.M. like I used to. If I have an idea in the middle of the night, I will go and get the bare bones down, but mostly you can learn to tame it to your needs.
My pure love is playing music.
It's a blessing and a curse when your first big public album does so well. 'Twentysomething' sold four million copies - I think we were hoping to sell 80,000. And it's still selling. In some ways, you'll always be defined by that.
People often say that having a family makes you make safer choices. It's been the total opposite for me. It's really made me want to make bolder choices.
Oh, I was a real Nirvana kid. I got into jazz because I listened to a lot of metal, Megadeth and that, and those guys play really fast and are virtuosos. I wanted to learn more about it, and I discovered that a lot of jazz guys played really fast, too.
I was thinking of applying to the 'Guardian' for a job after university. Yeah, I wanted to be one of the people who writes stories in G2.
I never sought out a record deal. It caught me with my pants down. I was just a musician doing my thing, I didn't even send my records out.
My grandfather, Harry, died when my dad was in his early 20s, so I never met him. Amazingly, he was 6ft tall. That gene definitely never filtered down to me!
My maternal granddad, Leonard, was full of amazing stories. He was an orphan, with 11 or 12 brothers and sisters, and he used to tell us about growing up near the Irrawaddy river and how one brother was eaten by a crocodile.
As I grow older and meet more and more people, I realise how lucky I am to have had a stable family environment. Both my parents had loving families but unstable upbringings, so they wanted us to have a more stable situation.
I sit around for ages waiting for inspiration. Then when I get an idea, I want to go with it and get something as quickly as possible. It's like catching a fly in a bottle. I'll play with drums for a bit, then the piano for a bit, play the guitar.
A studio allows you to indulge your untidiness and your penchant for toys and curiosities that really wouldn't work in a grown-up house.
Some musicians like to decorate their walls with discs saying: '1 million records sold in America.' I prefer to put up discs marking sales in lesser-known countries.
I'm no longer a shoeaholic, but I used to be. I used to spend all my time on tour either buying records or shoes.
What's interesting is often people think life changes when you have a record deal and you do all kinds of stuff. Obviously your life changes, but nothing changes your life like getting married and having kids.
