Hozier

We have such a culture of discrimination and hatred, and one that has scapegoats and affects people so extremely. That's something that very easily crosses borders.

I think all that we would know of America back home is foreign policy, and maybe the snippets of the madness of political culture.

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'm influenced a lot by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, even Paul Weller - Billie Holiday as well: People who wrote and sang songs that were reflective of their times. I quite like that. I quite admire that.

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!

A lot of the 'leave' campaign was centered around a thinly veiled xenophobia, just 'control our own borders.' It's not a good look. I don't think it represents Britain; I don't think it represents the U.K. all too well. It breaks my heart for my generation in Britain who are going to suffer.

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.

We all run the risk of thinking that people have common sense sometimes.

There's not a lot of room for thinking in popular culture; there's not a lot of room for being conflicted.

I'm still finding my feet in many ways as a performer. I'm not an extrovert, and certainly the attention isn't what drew me to it, and I find that quite jarring at times. I used to stress a lot about shows and get palpitations before shows, but eventually you learn to love it, and it is a thrill.

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 figured the songs wouldn't make much of a splash. I didn't think 'Take Me To Church' would play on the radio or get in the charts, and I didn't think about dealing with a global audience.