Quotes from Passenger

'Hell Or High Water' was written after the end of a relationship, and I do feel like every Passenger album has the obligatory break-up song.

I love that - you get everything from seven-year-olds to 87-year-olds at Passenger gigs.

I'm very much of that old-school mentality of believing that if it works with an acoustic guitar and a vocal, then it should work within any format - and especially when most of my live work is just guitar and vocals, so it really does have to work with only that.

I'd say 99 per cent of the time I write on my own, just with my guitar, and then it's trying to figure out what it needs in a production sense.

Finally I'd found this way where I didn't need a record label; I didn't need to wait for some phone call to tell me, 'Go and do it'. It's like, I'm going to get up with a bag of CDs and an amp and my guitar and make it happen for myself. That was such a liberating feeling, and I think it was the start of everything.

I dropped out of college and started gigging around Brighton.

You see a lot of bands and a lot of artists making that mistake: They become successful for doing something, and then they change everything. They change the people; they change the approach. And then, all of a sudden, almost the essence of what you do is gone.

I think, and I don't know if it's because of 'Searching for Sugar Man,' but South Africans seem to not have to go with what's popular but what they like, and that's refreshing.

I'd get a train to some town and wander about to find a decent spot. Sometimes I'd play for three hours; sometimes I'd get moved on after three songs.

I dropped out of school at 17 'cause all I wanted to do was play music. I had odd jobs on the side of gigging until I turned 22, when I was lucky to start doing this full time.

I believe it's important to put all of your energy into what you're doing rather than doing an office job and trying to muster up energy for music. It's been a real blessing to play music full time.

Some songs take months to get right, but 'Let Her Go' was so easy. I was no more pleased with it than any other song I'd written.

I think you've got to be careful with social media. You can get addicted to the buzz of people liking and commenting. It's exhausting.

I think expectations are sometimes dangerous things. I think the only thing you can be sure of is that it won't go to plan. I think that's the only thing that's definite.

I think I just look extremely normal, like just a sort of fairly trendy bearded bloke. Whereas Ed, you'd know it's Ed Sheeran from space, you know; you can see him from anywhere.

Life's for the living, so live it, or you're better off dead.

I have spent a lot of time out in Australia, and so I have a good little fan base out there.

I don't think I've ever really fitted into the industry and the scene. I feel like I've always been on the cusp.

I think Passenger is a bit of an ambiguous thing because in the past, it's been a band, or it's been just me, or a duo or whatever, but I kind of like that as well. I think it's whatever that I'm doing with whoever I'm doing it with!

'Heart on Fire' didn't do as well as the last record in most territories, but South Africa is one of the places it did really well.

If you're a priority artist, then you get an amazing amount of exposure and money thrown. If you are more niche, then it's not necessarily the way forward. If you want Instagram followers and fame, then the major labels are still really great for that.

America is a funny place; it's a land of extremes, I think. There's fantastic, and there's gobsmackingly dreadful. In every realm you could imagine, they do extremes very well or badly, depending on how you look at it.

For me, it's always just about playing the song and recording it and giving it what it needs as a song.

To be honest, busking was a massive part of becoming aware of homelessness. I used to run into a lot of 'Big Issue' sellers and a lot of people on the street. It really opened my eyes to the kind of life that they live and the options that are open for them - or not, actually.