The ex-Gorky’s thing is odd, it’s something that’s always mentioned even though it was so long ago. It can be tiring to people who know who I am but it’s a useful point of reference for promotion and if it helps to get people to gigs then that’s ok. Now I’m exercising my own creative direction as opposed to someone else’s, I’ve got creative freedom and now when I have any success I get to enjoy it all for myself. I hope people like what I do and can appreciate my music for what it is – that’s its strength, it’s what I create.

Life is something that you don’t choose to have – we don’t choose to be put here so we should try to fulfil our potential and gifts as a mark of gratitude for existence. It’s about doing as much, and putting as much goodness into the world as you can - lighting people’s lives as you go.

I’ve got a realistic work ethic. I’m quite willing to do any kind of job; I’m not exclusively only doing music for a living – I’ll happily graft. In that sense I don’t have to compromise my songwriting so it can stay pure. It’s healthy to balance creativity with hard labour as it gives you a grounded perspective. I’m also a producer and running a studio so I’m at that halfway point of work being creative and laborious as well…

My new album Rainy Night is now out so I’m doing some gigs around that. I’ve had some good reviews from a recent London gig to promote the album and then there was the Telegraph review. I’m in this issue of Uncut in Mojo and have just started producing Kev Fox’s album in the studio.
With music, the internet has made it a lot harder to sell physical formats but other aspects are a lot easier. Bands can now be on a more even footing with web resources, whether you’re Jo Bloggs who has written 2 songs or Black Sabbath. Technology’s cheaper now so more people have their own studios which makes the market more competitive. More people are able to get their work to a higher standard. With productions, because it’s easier for people to do their own thing, it’s even more important to get a strong producer so the ‘sea of stuff’ out there can be surpassed. I enjoy using the chapel in Old Colwyn as it offers a unique quality to the recording, the building can be equally as important as the instruments to get the harmonious sound between music and the acoustics.

I get my influence from Satan. There’s my classical background with a lot of other stuff thrown in, I was the typical punk/rebellious middle class teenager.

Songwriting for me comes in batches, I might not write for 6 months and then have triplets; it’s always something that wants to come out; sometimes a song will come out complete and the rest can almost be a process of trying to get back to that. You’re always developing your songs working/playing around with them; it’s as if that, for new songs to come, you have to consolidate what you’ve done, finalise it, release it, so that new stuff can come through and then you’ll get to the point where you get 10 songs you’re happy with. If it’s a good album it will denote that period of time, a good album reflects the smells, season and landscape because they were all fired in the same forge…

The future for Welsh music? Well, what makes music Welsh? It’s constantly changing.
The future for myself? World domination. For mankind? It would be nonsense to give any optimism at all in this scenario. It’s all black, different, change is ever present…