Damien Rice

There's a Nina Simone record that I love, 'Live at Vine Street,' and she sings flat on it. I can imagine she might've told the record label, 'Oh, God, you're not releasing that!' But I'm glad they did. ”

When I started off in music, I started with a real innocence, a real love for the instrument, the writing the songs, the playing the songs and the sharing and the recording and experimenting. It was exciting. Then, this thing called success came, and something happened at some point where I became disenchanted, and I lost the innocence. ”

Each song is a small universe to me. Each song has a story of its own. Each has a full life to express in order to be complete, so it often happens that the building to a big crescendo feels right in the recording or writing process. ”

The more I push myself to really live and really experience things and step outside of my comfort zone, the more the songs are allowed to flow. ”

A kite needs to be tied down in order to fly. I learned how important restrictions can sometimes be in order to experience freedom. ”

Inside, I've got a real purist desire and dream about the music. I like the idea of being able to carve out a kind of magical, colourful, artistic, inspirational life. And the reality just turns out to be quite different, working with the business to bring this thing you have created into the world. ”

I am really curious about life, about why we are all here. I notice my skin is ageing, things are changing, I've seen people dying, so that's the train we are all on. ”

Leonard Cohen has a way with words and with humor that remind me to lighten up, which I appreciate very much. ”

I've learned very, very, very clearly that money does not equal happiness or security, either. ”

I'm not the guy that wants to be famous and make loads of money and sell loads of records. I don't want that. I just want to be true. I want to be... I want to serve music. I want to be honest. ”