Dean Lewis

“So, I would write songs... I sort of loved it and hated it in the sense that I would be like, it's never good enough, and I didn't think it was that good, but I always kept striving to write better and better stuff.”

“You can't come back to Australia and be like, 'I've been doing this and I've been doing this.' 'Cause they'll be like, 'Who do you think you are, mate?' Which is good! It keeps you really, y'know, grounded, I guess.”

“The day I write a totally happy song... I'll retire.”

“I just want to prove myself.”

“I guess I'm a pretty honest person, but I think my friends were surprised when they heard my stuff for the first time. I'm not super expressive when I'm just going about my life.”

“I'm very lucky to have signed to Island records U.S.A. It's one of those pinch yourself moments.”

“You can write a song for someone, and then their mom doesn't like it, and then it doesn't get released. It could be the best song that you've ever written. I hated that, because I didn't have any control.”

“The songs always have to come from a real experience.”

“If you're big in America, you can go to Australia and automatically, the first time you'll be there, you can sell out huge venues.”

“When something is great, then you can sit back after the work is done and relax, but during the process I definitely am making sure everything is really, really good.”

“I can write a happy song, but there has to be some sort of twist. Otherwise it feels a bit cheesy.”

“I mean, sometimes it's really good to listen to something like Tom Petty, that's purely blissed out. But that's not me.”

“I always, always go to my brother Rhys's house whenever something goes wrong and he'll always say 'you'll be alright, forget about it.'”

“I grew up listening to Oasis and The Verve; English music was huge in my house.”

“I spent five years watching every Noel Gallagher video that was on YouTube.”