Dan Smith

“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.”

“Most friendship groups will have someone who starts a new relationship, and you just don't see them for four months. And that's always kind of sad, almost like an inverted break up. I guess the ideal situation is that whoever the new partner is can be subsumed into the friendship group.”

“Whenever we're on the red carpet, we look like competition winners. It's a joke.”

“I don't necessarily feel 100 per cent comfortable standing up on stage in front of lots of people, but I don't think most people would. It's a pretty bizarre thing to do. It can also be absolutely incredible having thousands of people singing back lyrics that you might have written in your bedroom or wherever.”

“There are moments, when you're playing your songs to thousands of people, which are amazingly satisfying. I'm very self-critical, so I find it hard to go along with moments like that.”

“After everyone's gone to bed, I still find myself sitting at the computer writing songs. It's a nice reminder that this has always been a kind of hobby that I get on with because I really love it.”

“There's a lot of variety in our gigs, our records, our mixtapes, and our videos.”

“I'm into really terrible, trashy American horror films. I think the 'Final Destination' 'sinquology', to phrase it, is brilliant! It's un-toppable in terms of how incredible it is.”

“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.”

“'Fire Walk With Me' was so divisive because the tone was so different than the TV series. But now television is almost more of a free medium than cinema.”

“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.”

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

“I think there's some people that absolutely love attention, and I'm not necessarily one of those people, but we're so, so lucky to be able to do this with our lives. There are certain aspects that maybe are not amazing, like having to represent us.”

“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.”

“There haven't been many examples of times when we've done a cover and not put it out in some form.”

“When we started making mixtapes, we were just ripping stuff off YouTube and DVDs, naively thinking that because we were putting it up for free, it was gonna be fine.”

“It would be wicked to do a mad '90s tune and make it a duet with Rihanna. I love her new album 'Anti.' I'm into quite dark R&B.”

“I think everyone has such varied taste in music.”

“We love to visit Las Vegas. It is so much fun, so iconic; it is always a pleasure.”

“Lip synching in a video is usually my idea of hell.”