Jonas Blue

“My mates are absolute nutters. They're all Essex boys in the true sense and they definitely keep my feet on the ground.”

“Abbey Road was actually one of the first studios I ever got the chance to go to. A friend of mine won a competition and got the chance to spend a day recording there - that's when I was around 15 - and I was the only one who could engineer out of all of us.”

“That's the whole part about being a deejay: You've got to make sure you are prepared. At the end of the day, you do have your genre - house music, dance music - but there are many different ways of playing that.”

“I am always listening to new music and reading about music.”

“I saw school as a business and, once I had got what I needed out of it, I left.”

“I was a musician first of all.”

“A turntable is the classic DJ's weapon for playing vinyl, but the mixer is the device that actually allows you to blend multiple tracks together to create a mix.”

“Albums are great but for an artist like me, I don't think albums are the way to go.”

“I got into DJing because that was the coolest thing to do and I've never looked back.”

“I've got a lot of girl mates. Especially when you come to Ibiza and you're an Ibiza DJ, everyone comes out and they want to see you.”

“I love the idea of Pro Tools, but it doesn't seem as attractive to me in terms of the music-making side. It's great for recording, but with Logic you get the best of both worlds, the ability to do great tracking and producing something that sounds great as well.”

“What is pop music? It's not a genre. It's just the music that is popular at a given point in time.”

“Well after 'Fast Car' was so huge, everyone was asking me, 'What's the next song?' At the time I just had ideas I was working on, but it was very clear I needed to finish another song ASAP, and that's how 'Perfect Strangers' came about.”

“I'm a little bit of a show-off; I just wanted to get girls and be popular.”

“I think when 'Perfect Strangers' landed and was so well received, it was a magic moment.”

“I think the best thing about performing as producer is to hear the fans sing along with your tunes.”

“It's definitely hard to have relationships. When your life moves so quickly, people generally want replies on messenger apps and sometimes I don't get back to people for two or three weeks.”

“I know it sounds weird for a 12-year-old to say that he wants to start writing songs, but that's what happened.”

“I don't sing. I'm the worst singer in the world!”

“Even when I'm travelling - which is when I do most of my writing - I have a little portable keyboard.”