I have very strong feelings about a lot of things. I am sometimes reluctant to come straight to the forefront with it. You know, first and foremost, I'm a musician. I'm a songwriter.

I remember writing lyrics for 'Take Me to Church' for a long time before I even had a song in mind for. It's not that I was trying to write that song for a year, but sometimes you just kind of collect lyrical and musical ideas and don't actually complete the song until you feel like they work together and have a home.

The myth of fame and the myth of success is cultivated because it is monetisable and it is profitable.

I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties.

It's a surreal experience filming promotion with Ryan Seacrest and meeting Top 40 pop artists.

It's funny: Your relationship changes with a song over time. After a year or so, you're a different person, so your songs, you don't connect with them like you did.

I think it's very hard to write things about being joyful. I find that quite difficult. I think when you're happy, you don't want to write songs; you just want to enjoy being happy.

It's so easy to look forward when you're travelling; you spend your life looking forward, thinking, 'What's next? When do I get time to work on my music again? Or when do I get time to get my 'normal' life back?'

You just feel like you're doing a job that you want to be doing, and then one day, somebody asks you a question like that: 'What's it like to be famous?' It doesn't really mean anything. The only difference is some people stop you and ask you for photographs.

I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together.

I always thought of myself as a very, very obscure artist.

The public discourse online is not done through the polite language of debate.

The main thing is, I can't stay up late partying when I'm on tour. That's not good for my voice or my health in general.

Someone had an eye on me as I was leaving high school. I had a chance to record demos, but they were kind of wanting to make a pop singer out of me, of the 'X Factor' variety. I didn't feel comfortable with it. I wanted to be a songwriter.

I'm still finding my feet in many ways as a performer. I'm not an extrovert, and certainly the attention isn't what drew me to it, and I find that quite jarring at times. I used to stress a lot about shows and get palpitations before shows, but eventually you learn to love it, and it is a thrill.

I used to almost not look forward to recording, because it was like, 'Okay, what am I going to have to sacrifice?'

I don't like false happy endings, and I don't think the real world is such a forgiving place.

I was essentially raised on blues music. My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me.

I was definitely drawn to the mythology of one man, one voice, and one guitar.

All songs, all pieces of art, reflect the world that they were made in and the values of those artists and the hopes and aspirations of the people who listen to that music and who made that music.

By the time I was in my teens, I was listening to Delta blues and jazz.

It was amazing for me to even perform at the Grammys, but to do so alongside Annie Lennox was a truly incredible honor.

I wish I had more time to read. I'm always traveling.

I look at all good things with a bit of a dark lens, I suppose, especially with something like love.

Growing up in Ireland, there are a lot of aspects of God that hang in the air. And my music reflects that.

Being 16 is the worst time to be anybody, there is not enough tea in China to persuade me to be that young again. I wasn't very happy with myself.

There was a moment, a few weeks after I signed, that it actually hit me. I was signed to a major label.

If I fall into a city, I fall into a scene, and I just don't want to get distracted and enjoy myself too much. There's too much work to be done.

My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me.

I'd love to do something with somebody like James Blake.

Love isn't any one good thing; it's a very, very strange mishmash of emotions. Your love for somebody is, oftentimes, informed by the terrible things you might believe about yourself, and comparatively, the person you see them as is everything that you're not.

It was a rural upbringing by the seaside. A real quiet place surrounded by fields. I had to travel into town for school and stuff like that.

My musical education was grounded in blues and Chicago blues - John Lee Hooker and Otis Redding.

I'm an awful control freak at times when it comes to production and stuff like that.

I think it all started with Nina Simone. When I was maybe seven or eight, I used to listen to one of her albums every night before I went to sleep. For me, her voice was everything.

Some of the earlier stuff I did in studio with producers was very pop-directed, which I was uncomfortable with.

If I don't think something's worth saying, I don't think it's quite there, I'd rather just not say it, to be honest. In that case, I'd rather wait 'till the thought is ready, 'till I feel like I'm happy with everything.

We have such a culture of discrimination and hatred, and one that has scapegoats and affects people so extremely. That's something that very easily crosses borders.

If you can say something beautiful in a very terrible way - I was always drawn to that.

I like playing with light and shade. I like saying awful things in very pretty ways.

I love a lot of Irish folk music and Irish folk songs.

I've definitely received a lot of support in Nashville; it's a huge music town. I like country music. Like any genre I'm largely unfamiliar with, there are elements I really enjoy and elements that go over my head.

I'm not quite used to being seen through the eyes of fans yet. Being met with squeals and screams - I haven't gotten used to that.

The success of 'Take Me To Church,' I never imagined it. I never imagined that it would work on radio, that it would find its way onto the charts, even at home and certainly not in America.

I remember one of the first albums I got was an album called 'Thin Lizzy: Live and Dangerous.'

Truth be told, I'm not all that comfortable with celebrity culture. That was always something that baffled me, the obsession over fame. I don't think that's a reason why anyone should get into making music.

There are a few Irish writers who have a very strong influence on me, especially on the 'Take Me to Church' EP.

The way I did the first album... the way I wrote 'Church'... was just to trust my instincts with the music and let it kind of do what it does.

I'm uncomfortable with selfies and status updates documenting mundane pieces of my life, which I don't think should be of interest to anyone else.

I am a politically motivated person, and that will come through in the music.