“A newer guy I am really into is Ray LaMontagne, not just because of his voice and how he plays, but his lyrics are fantastic. Some of the lyrics on his first album, Trouble... there are so many songs on there that I’m mad that I didn’t write. That’s the sign of a wonderful writer.

“There’s songs like Jolene, which you can only imagine where that came from. If you’re anything like I am, you’ve had mornings where you wake up and you’re like, ‘Where the hell am I?’ You don’t know how you’re going to get home, you don’t know where you’re going but you grab on to something.

“It’s got that youthful romanticism that the gypsy in you is trying to travel. You find yourself at your lowest and find yourself looking back to when you were at your highest and that woman that was there and that defined you.

“He wrote a song called Burn, that is one of the all-time saddest songs I’ve ever heard in my life. The first time I heard it I wanted to cry my eyes out. That kind of passion, you have you marry to a wonderful intellect.”