It's great to be part of the whole Ibiza Rocks vibe. Ibiza's always had a big gap when it comes to bands with guitars so it's great to be included really.
— Ben Howard
John Martyn is my biggest hero. My mom got me into his music when I was a kid. I've looked up to him more than anyone as a songwriter. And Bert Jansch is one of the pillars of acoustic music, the holy grail.
I studied to be a journalist, but I don't think I would have made a very good one. I don't have the work ethic.
I've surfed on Lake Michigan.
The U.K. is pretty good at being environmentally conscious.
I think there are definitely positives when you go back to the familiar, because it's something you don't have to think about when you know the place. But sometimes on the other hand, it can be quite unchallenging.
I have problems with guitars, I hammer away at it sometimes and I also do little intimate picks, I'm always looking at new guitars and little extra tweaks and stuff, I like to mix it up a bit.
I'm not very good at dancing.
Women and their impact, good and bad. It makes men write songs. I write about relationships, basically.
I'm not like a total recluse who lives in the woods or anything.
There was no grand scheme, no big push, there are things I would have done differently now but you make decisions on the hop and it takes you where you are.
Just to get asked to a Ibiza Rocks is a big thing.
The recording sessions for 'Noonday Dream' were so varied and over quite a period of time.
We were selling out venues, not just in London but also major cities in France and Germany before labels had even noticed what we were doing.
I'm one of those artists who doesn't really believe in fame. You can be a normal person these days, you don't need celebrity appeal.
It's hard on the road, you don't get too much time to sit down and focus.
Without a doubt, Ibiza is one of my favourite places on the planet.
In the countryside, you're always hearing sheep, birds, tractors and farm equipment.
In my late teens, I fell out of love with music - you know how kids are, when you're encouraged to do something, you rebel. But then I picked it back up again.
I met Xavier Rudd at a surf festival in England.
Surfing and music have always been two separate sides of my life. I'm quite a fun-loving person most of the time, but I feel like I always get the serious side out when I'm playing music, and then I have fun the rest of the time when I get in the sea.
That's the biggest thing we're excited about: to be in America and have shows sell out is an incredible thing.
I got thrust a guitar by my mum as a little kid and always played it. I sort of fell in and out of love with it, there were times when I hated it when I was ten and was forced to go to lessons.
I'm not very good at speeches.
I've always thought I crossed this really weird gap between the pop world and some slightly more left-field singer-songwriter music, but everyone's always comparing me with Ed Sheeran. It's frustrating.
A live show is a room full of sound and people and now you have technology where people can film it and take it away and all that is lost afterwards but they have a souvenir.
We played a lot of live shows, we just kept plugging away and playing music and people kept coming back.
We spent so much time on 'Every Kingdom,' it was a real heart record.
I have a platinum-selling record but I can walk around fine.
I've never been a fan of all the R&B and vocoder stuff you hear on the radio.
We've played all sorts of weird and wonderful places. You do all kinds of venues from heavy metal places in Germany to big ornate churches, and everything in between.
I live in a small town so I get recognised a lot which is weird.
In England, it's usually cold. So surfing is more of an adventure where you're floating around in a big, dark, stormy sea rather than the California notion of girls in bikinis on beaches. It's really going into the fray. I like it because it gives you the extra time and space you need to think.
Loud sounds are everywhere.
I went around driving myself to gigs everywhere, and eventually, people just kept coming back.
I like slightly obscure places, where the waves may not be world class, but you can tie some culture in with your surf trip.
I never understood how one could write a whole book: It is so technically challenging, and it's incredible the way writers put entire worlds inside of them on such a large scale. I tend to have that same feeling when I listen to music - it daunts me and makes me feel quite unsettled listening to so much talent and ambition.
I think it's important to find your own voice in your own space.
I think the most frustrating thing is when people... sometimes people are a bit lazy and they don't listen to something, and they'll just say you sound like something else and it's quite clear that you don't, I think that's frustrating.
I've been a Surfers Against Sewage supporter for years and was delighted to donate one of my tracks for the #SIGNFORIT initiative.
As a singer-songwriter I definitely think I push the mould a lot.
I'm not prolific, I go over stuff and it goes for me and sometimes against me. I'm annoyed that I don't do enough stuff off-the-cuff. It's a difficult thing to do something quickly and stand behind it.
I've been going to Ibiza all my life really, since I was a kid.
I need some time and space to make sure I'm on the right track with myself and playing music I want to play.
I was never in music to make it to award shows.
There's force-feeding people synthesised music, then there's a skill in technically being able to play an instrument, even if that is some electronic pad.
A lot of the bars are really nice to me now because they've heard me on the radio.
