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The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

The tricky thing about songwriting is that, more often than not, what you consider to be your best work generates a collective shrug, and something you've simply tossed off bowls people over.

Songwriting is hard - it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.

That's the great thing about songwriting: You have that time to have perspective and look back and think about all the things you'd want to say.

For me, songwriting is something like breathing: I just do it. But that doesn't mean you're fantastic.

I stand firm behind the belief that, for me, songwriting isn't something that I do or command, it happens to me. I can either choose to stop and acknowledge it, or put it off and hope that it won't fade away. 'That Wasn't Me' is no exception - it came together more quickly than any other song I have ever constructed on my own.

Nothing can stop a great song, so just keep songwriting.

As a songwriter I hate this whole, 'If it's a sad song, it has to sound like a sad song thing.' And that goes all the way back to my days with the Format. I'm an insane narcissist, so if I have to get something off my chest, I'll get something off my chest.

When I get all focused on songwriting, I get into all the marketing and promotion that we do to make it happen. Then the right song comes along and blows it all out of the water. The right song will do it for you every time.

Songwriting is something that's very daunting until you have your first successful song, I think.