Quotes from Hozier

I know I'm not the kind of music that's going to have tons of screaming fans, and I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. I just want to do as good a job as I can.

When I write songs, I try to remove myself a little bit. Obviously, they're very personal to me, but it feels easier if I feel like I'm writing characters.

It's a very, very interesting experience to be talking to people who are such icons in their own right. When Adele came to a show, I was just talking to her, and at the time, I thought, 'I'm just having a chat with somebody.' But then I heard myself say, 'Oh, I was talking to Adele the other day,' and it's as strange as you'd imagine.

Religion wasn't imposed on me.

I was never academically driven in English, but, again, Tom Waits is a perfect example of an influence. He writes so immaculately and paints so perfectly a world and the characters within it. There are writers like that who are my influences: vivid and gifted storytellers.

I'm quite tame as touring musicians go.

I think it is important to differentiate between lip service towards something and actually making change.

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

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 never wrote music for the mainstream.

I'm not cross about the idea of baptism; I just think the idea that when a child is born it is inherently sinful and carries sin and needs to be cleaned in order for it to be all right and all good with its creator, I just think that's an absurd notion.

When I first started to sing, I just swung at it with an axe.

If I could, I'd sing old French songs or American folk music, but I sure as hell can't do it as well as Mississippi John Hurt - no way in hell am I getting near that!

The best vocalists I can think of are female. There is no singer I can think of who can touch Ella Fitzgerald. And when Billie Holiday sings, she's merciless about it. Her voice has just this immaculate sadness - even in happy songs, there was something that was so broken about it.

By nature, I'm an awkward person; I'm a gangly introvert.

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

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

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

I had a fascination with the roots of African American music. That would have been my first education in music. I had a real passion for it. I wanted to play it, sing it. I could sing at a young age, but I started to teach myself bass guitar and started writing when I was 15.

There are a lot of recurring themes that I resonated with when I read 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.'

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

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?'

It sounds like I'm joking when I say it, but when I wrote 'Take Me To Church' and a lot of these things, I didn't think they would be hits. I thought I was writing for a potentially smaller audience.

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.