I've programmed myself musically to come up with love-feeling tracks that are romantic sexy but classy all in one. And that's the challenge. Once I create that music then the lyrical content starts to come - you know the stories and things like that.

Half the time I feel like I'm appealing to the downer freaks out there. We start to play one downer record after another until I begin to get down myself. Give me something from 1960 or something let me get up again. The music of today is for downer freaks and I'm an upper.

It's really hard for me to sometimes put myself out there like 'Hey how do you feel about making music together?' because maybe I'm afraid of rejection or I don't want to put anybody out. It's the Southerner in me like 'I don't mean to bother you but do you mind making a song?'

I feel this music has nurtured me as I've been immersing myself in it. I've felt supported by it.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers like Frank Sinatra and myself we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written we go back to the greatest songs.

I don't like to be labeled to be anything. I've made the mistake before myself of labeling my music but it's counter-productive.

In the course of transferring all my CDs to my iPod I have found myself wandering the musical hallways of my past and reacquainting myself with music I haven't listened to in years.

I've had to keep exploring different ways of presenting the music so I don't repeat myself.

I think one of my favorite things to do is just lock myself up in a small room and listen to music and watch films for a day. Also I just like seeing my friends. We have pizza parties which means I get four friends round we eat a pizza and we're really lazy and we play PlayStation.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion - very powerful emotions. That's what draws millions of people towards it. And um I found myself always going for these darker places and - people identify with that.