Quotes from Passenger

I think we're all survivors, to be honest. I mean, some of us more than others - some of us have to survive far more horrendous things than others. It's all relative: whatever your experience is.

I can play the main stage at the Newport Folk Festival in front of 10,000 people and do all the gigs and stuff I want to do. Then I can go home and get toilet paper on a Sunday morning and not get hassled.

I write so much and I release so much music that I think I'm less precious about that stuff than a lot of people.

I'm lucky in the sense that I can write wherever I am - on the bus, in the hotel room, backstage, sitting at home.

Its pretty humbling, because I go back to the places where I used to play for 13 people, and now there's 1,500.

People sometimes come up to me, and it's like they just want to capture Passenger. I feel like Pikachu. Sometimes, in the more sort of depressing moments, it feels like it's not about the music, it's just about the photo, and that really worries me.

I can find myself in a situation where, by the time I'm releasing an album, I have the next one written. It is a bit old school.

I know Ed Sheeran writes with a bunch of fantastic writers, but for me, it's quite difficult to be that honest with other people.

I spent my life on the road touring, and a lot of the songs are written in tour buses and hotel rooms.

I've spent the last 10 years constantly touring and haven't had much reason to stick around anywhere. I'm 34 now, and I've got a girlfriend and a house and two cats. I don't want to run away; I like where I'm at.

We plan tours months in advance, and you leave a few days off here and there where you feel you'll be tired after some shows, but if other opportunities keep coming in, those days get swallowed very quickly, and it's an impossibility to get this stuff right.

I write wherever I am. It helps that the writing process, for me, is a lone-wolf mission.

What I love is when I play gigs, it's just me and a guitar - very simple, very direct and intimate, and you hear every lyric, and you hear every detail.

I've got friends and my family and people who've been around for years and years and years. And those people are never in doubt: They'd be my friend whether I was a homeless dude, or I had a hit single.

When I sat down with all the songs before recording, I realised I'd written a few songs specifically about places in America - there was this song about Detroit and another about Yellowstone National Park. My dad is actually American, so I wrote another song about that side of my family.

I think some sing-songwriter music can just be very serious - after an hour and a half of it, you are exhausted - so I try and give it light and shade.

The big thing is I'm not with a major label. I've been independent since the get-go, and I've been very lucky to get some good advice on keeping hold of copyright and that kind of stuff.

If you can write a catchy melody and a song that captures people around the world, what better thing to do? Other than 'Let Her Go,' I haven't managed to do that. And that's fine by me.

I still have the mentality of a street musician, because I was one for five years. Every opportunity that comes my way, I feel like, 'Absolutely, let's do this.' Sometimes, it's to my detriment. But I don't think you become successful by not saying yes to opportunities.

I think you're in trouble if you start chasing what you've done in the past. You always need to move on and look forward and do something new.

I think, after 'Let Her Go,' I wanted to show people that I don't just write really sad love songs about my ex-girlfriend: that there's another side to Passenger as well that's a bit more up-tempo and more inclined to social commentary.

I've grown up on American songwriters my whole life - listening to Paul Simon and Bob Dylan and people like John Prine - you know, classic, real songwriters. They've been the lion's share of what I've really focused on as a writer and as influences, too.

I learned classical guitar as a kid at about 7 or 8 years old. When I was about 14, I started dabbling in songwriting. That's when I got into the folky singer-songwriter style.

I'm so lucky to not have to busk anymore, but I realized as soon as I didn't need to do it that I really missed it.