Shura

“In London, I used to play 'Boys of Summer,' but it didn't feel right, because it doesn't apply to your surroundings, to the weather. I remember being in L.A. and listening to that record and going, 'Oh, I get it now.'”

“A lot of people think I popped out of some pink cloud fully formed, ready for action, but I've been putting songs on SoundCloud since I was 16. Five people would listen and like them. I never had any expectations for myself.”

“I'm not one of those artists that can go away for six months and tour America and have 20 producers back in London or L.A. doing everything for me and I just come home and sing on it. It would be really useful, in terms of speed, to work like that. I just wouldn't find it creatively satisfying. I have to have my hand on the remote control.”

“It's really weird when you realize the people you look up to - who have influenced or inspired you - start to realize what you do.”

“I found my own voice slowly. I don't do big tricks like Mariah Carey, so I've found this weird way of singing that works for me.”

“Sometimes we feel like we're only interacting with what's already happening; we don't actually affect anything - sometimes I feel like that, anyway.”

“I didn't really want anyone to know that I wanted to write music or make songs because, in a way, I didn't necessarily know if I wanted to do it for a profession. I wanted to do it to express myself.”

“I felt that pop music didn't represent me. And that's why I made my own.”

“Perhaps a young boy or girl, after watching my video, can go, 'Maybe I don't have to be embarrassed. Maybe I can come out at school, maybe I can tell my best friend... and maybe I don't have to be afraid anymore.'”

“I don't care about how many records I sell, but the main thing is people like it.”

“A lot of people start by learning other people's songs, but the idea of singing someone else's music didn't excite me. I just wanted to write my own. It was really bad to begin with. It's improved slightly since.”

“I'm actually really impressed with everyone at Polydor.”

“My dad used to do a lot of music when he was young, so he had an 8-track MiniDisc recorder, and when he realized that I was getting on with it, he brought it upstairs to my room and showed me how to record and how, once you finished eight tracks, you can cut it down to two and have another six tracks to play with.”

“I read interviews saying women can bring a femininity to a song, a delicacy, but some women make really aggressive music.”

“To go from someone who would put something on SoundCloud and maybe get 15,000 plays in a year to getting 100,000 plays in one day felt very weird. I thought I was dying.”

“Whilst the Internet is amazing, someone with a laptop can make something amazing and send it out, but you grow up creatively in a very public way.”

“'Nothing's Real' is about my first-ever panic attack, which I had about four months after getting my record deal.”

“I think it's much harder now with the Internet to hone anything. It's easy to share things: you do one track, and it goes on Hype Machine; people are being exposed a lot earlier.”

“I don't hate my voice. I'm just not an Adele.”

“With 'White Light,' I had just finished watching 'Under the Skin' and was really obsessed with the idea of science fiction presented as normality.”