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One of my favorite books is 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell, and 'Catcher in the Rye,' obviously, is a big influence and is one of my favorites.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I have a bit of a love affair with fairy tales and some of the ideas of Irish mythology, like Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, who captured a lot of that very beautifully.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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Being in a studio is quite a creative and energetic process.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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You grow up and recognise that in an educated, secular society, there's no excuse for ignorance. You have to recognise in yourself, and challenge yourself, that if you see racism or homophobia or misogyny in a secular society, as a member of that society, you should challenge it. You owe it to the betterment of society.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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Governments do not care about your Facebook-assembled opinion. Incompetent politicians don't read your tweets; there are reasons for them being out of touch. Change does not come about for 'likes' on a page, though the ideas for it may start there.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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It was a rural upbringing by the seaside. A real quiet place surrounded by fields. I had to travel into town for school and stuff like that.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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Either somebody has equal rights, or they don't. And certainly in the Irish constitution, marriage is genderless. There's no mention of a man and a woman.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I think marriage is a scary concept. It's a scary concept for anybody. I'm not sure where I sit with that.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I was essentially raised on blues music. My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I just hate getting my hair cut.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I look at all good things with a bit of a dark lens, I suppose, especially with something like love.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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It's a very, very interesting experience to be talking to people who are such icons in their own right. When Adele came to a show, I was just talking to her, and at the time, I thought, 'I'm just having a chat with somebody.' But then I heard myself say, 'Oh, I was talking to Adele the other day,' and it's as strange as you'd imagine.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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Things were never as exciting for me as the first gig in New York.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I'm not cross about the idea of baptism; I just think the idea that when a child is born it is inherently sinful and carries sin and needs to be cleaned in order for it to be all right and all good with its creator, I just think that's an absurd notion.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I'm an awful control freak at times when it comes to production and stuff like that.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I'm not quite used to being seen through the eyes of fans yet. Being met with squeals and screams - I haven't gotten used to that.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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Religion wasn't imposed on me.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I remember writing lyrics for 'Take Me to Church' for a long time before I even had a song in mind for. It's not that I was trying to write that song for a year, but sometimes you just kind of collect lyrical and musical ideas and don't actually complete the song until you feel like they work together and have a home.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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It's funny: Your relationship changes with a song over time. After a year or so, you're a different person, so your songs, you don't connect with them like you did.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I think all that we would know of America back home is foreign policy, and maybe the snippets of the madness of political culture.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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Growing up in Ireland, there are a lot of aspects of God that hang in the air. And my music reflects that.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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I'm influenced a lot by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, even Paul Weller - Billie Holiday as well: People who wrote and sang songs that were reflective of their times. I quite like that. I quite admire that.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
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Rarely do I finish a song lyrically before I have a musical idea there, but then again, rarely ever would I finish a song musically before starting the lyrical ideas. So a lot of the time, they come in tandem, or they just come at a glance.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne
