Let's start with a bit about you, what is your first musical memory?
There's a few that blend together. I remember Meat Loaf's ''Bat Out Of Hell'' album on cassette tape one Christmas and listening to it with my dad Saturday morning when I got up. I was only about six or seven but even then I had a strong sense that this was a great album to start the weekend to.
My older cousin let me hear the Guns N Roses album ''Use Your Illusions' when I was around the same age. I was captivated by that one for a lot of years after.
I can remember my parents playing Bob Dylan's ''Mr Tambourine Man'' and I was fascinated by the contrast between his version and the version by The Byrds. I would come back to Dylan many years later when I was ready to understand him...I never came back to The Byrds though.
How did you get into music as a career?
Well I never really thought of it as a career, and I still don't. Songwriting was just something I got a high from and when I was in school it gave the class-clown smart-ass inside me an outlet that didn't get me into trouble - now it's just second nature, part of my identity. If I showed up to a party with a guitar people might think I was ill. Even if it did start to really pay off financially, I think I would always be too close to it to think of it as a career.
How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it - in three words?
Worth a listen.
Where has been your favourite place to play and why?
The best nights don;t always transpire where you'd expect them to. I've played to five thousand people before and there's a certain trill attached to that, but then some of my most memorable evenings have been entertaining non more than eight or nine people in somebody's kitchen. A good night just depends on so many things that are out of your hands that you don't really know when it's going to come together.
What is your writing process like?
It usually begins with a rhyming couplet racing through my head at a very inappropriate time, like when I'm busy or just about to fall asleep. Just one or two lines that are worth pursuing. When that happens, they'll be noted, and I'll look at them again the next time I bet a chance to sit down with the guitar. If I'm lucky it'll spark off a song. There's a balance and a compromise that happens because you have to sit and work at part of the song but another part has to be given to you from somewhere. There's a key component to a song that you can't find just from showing up and trying, it just presents itself when it wants to and sometimes it just keeps you waiting around.
