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I don't believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off. I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more.

People buy a ticket to see your show, so from the moment I get onstage, I can have no insecurities, because they're already there. You have to get people to listen. If they listen, everything's cool.

Most performers take themselves too seriously. They forget there is a difference between the characters they play on the screen or stage and themselves, but the public doesn't forget there is a difference. They see how silly it is if you try to be the same person all the time.

Sometimes, the most daunting thing about performing is making eye contact with your audience, so just look above them and at the corners of the room. Soon, you'll totally forget they're there.

At the upper echelon of musicians in general, I guess performers in general, you have to have this kind of live-or-die, cutthroat mentality.

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose.

Performing has been part of my life since I was eight years old, so that's what I think I do. I don't think about the fact that it happens to be in a bigger venue where people get to know you, or they think they do.

Acting on stage is a living organism you can never pin down, and I believe the audience feeds off that, too.

I've been told by a lot of people after concerts that they felt the show was just for them. And I try to make it that way.