70 Quotes by James Righton

For me, my favourite music was things like The Bee Gees, ABBA and 'The White Album.' The 70s is the period that I love more than anything.

After touring the first album, we went into the studio and started making music that was influenced by all the freaky folk music we'd been listening to. Lots of Canterbury scene stuff from the 1960s and '70s. Robert Wyatt, Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong.

We've never been ashamed of the fact we are, first and foremost, a pop band.

There was a lack of inspiration in London. There were a lot of dregs of the Libertines' movement, and we didn't want to do that. We wanted big melodies and hooks, organic melodies that could fall apart at any moment.

We want our audience to enjoy themselves, we want every gig to feel like an event - of course there are musical elements of rave to our sound, but we wouldn't strictly classify ourselves as that.

The elements of rave that we try to incorporate are the fun aspects.

The Smiths did that well, putting words in pop songs you wouldn't hear anywhere else.

It's really important to push things as hard as you can but also remember who you are.

We have high expectations and a high level of standard we try to reach in everything we do. Ideas get through if they are good enough, songs get their way in.