Dan Smith

I write songs, but the guys play on them, they have opinions on them, and we tour together and spend all our time together. ”

There's always room to make stuff that is completely morose and downbeat, but we'd probably spiral into a state of complete despair if our music reflected the lyrics all the time. I think that's almost the fun game with some songs, is this complete tearing of two feelings at once. ”

Our favourite album that we always listen to in the car is '2001' by Dr. Dre, which is just the ultimate album of all time. ”

When we started out in the U.K., there were songs that we made, we put them on the Internet, and we immediately started touring the U.K. We borrowed our friend's mum's car, and drove ourselves around for, like, a year playing gigs in pubs and tiny little venues. In that respect, we're pretty grass roots as a band. We've done all that together. ”

The Backstreet Boys posted a cover of our single 'Good Grief.' It was so cool, and they reached out to us, saying, 'When you're in town, come to the show.' ”

In 'Good Grief', in trying to create this sense of the huge downs and ups, stumbles of this process, we're almost using the music to make it uplifting, so it's not completely hopeless. ”

A lot of our songs are based in reality but imagined or using fictional characters as a way to write about something. I think inspiration comes from anything and everything, and it's filtered through our brains, and it comes out sounding like our band. ”

I really like people to be able to interpret stuff in their own way, I like the ambiguity of the medium. We're just four guys in a band trying to articulate things in a questioning way. Who are we to tell people what to think? ”

The Shining' is operatic and sensational and... really shocking. It has this amazing meld of classical music and modern interpretations of classical music, and incredible imagery. From the set design to the costumes, there's so much to unpack. ”

I made a lot of the first album on a laptop in my bedroom after college and after work. ”