I wish I had more time to read. I'm always traveling.
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 my parents took me to see Sting when I was very, very young.
I'm not sure if every song will be 'Take Me to Church,' but I can only hope that people enjoy the body of work that I have ahead of me.
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 was definitely drawn to the mythology of one man, one voice, and one guitar.
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.
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 didn't even have that many close LGBT friends or anything like that, but I suppose it was growing up and becoming aware of how you are in a cultural landscape that is blatantly homophobic... you turn around and say, 'Why did I grow up in a homophobic place? Why did I grow up in a misogynistic place?'
I don't like false happy endings, and I don't think the real world is such a forgiving place.
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.
There was a moment, a few weeks after I signed, that it actually hit me. I was signed to a major label.
By the time I was in my teens, I was listening to Delta blues and jazz.
To be honest, the biggest reason I write music and became a musician was to create the amount of joy that I felt about music to anyone else. To me, that's a job well done.
I love a lot of Irish folk music and Irish folk songs.
Growing up in Ireland, there are a lot of aspects of God that hang in the air. And my music reflects that.
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.
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.
I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can.
No Facebook status is as worrying as a vote and no tweet is as noticeable as an angry cry from a crowd outside a government building.
I'm reading a lot of poetry because it's a lot easier to dip in and dip out when you've got 10 minutes to yourself.
I love a good party - but I'm not all that attracted to a celebrity lifestyle.
I always thought of myself as a very, very obscure artist.
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.
Religion wasn't imposed on me.
There are a few Irish writers who have a very strong influence on me, especially on the 'Take Me to Church' EP.
For me growing up, I had a Christian upbringing, and I just noticed this Catholic influence in school.
Governments do not care about your Facebook-assembled opinion. Incompetent politicians don't read your tweets; there are reasons for them being out of touch. Change does not come about for 'likes' on a page, though the ideas for it may start there.