Thank you very much for your questions. I hope I've left you with some answers.

[There's not a song called that! That is me typing it wrong - Laura, Guardian music desk] There's references to it. The intention isn't exactly to do songs about causes but to credit the reality of things, how you interpret the world. I can only write about how I experience these issues, and I share the worries and anxieties of what we may be facing.

Thank you very much. More recently, with the band. Usually I'd spend a bit of time alone and arrange a few ideas, some of the vocal harmonies, and then bring it in. The busier I get, it's nice to lean on all the talent around me. Alex Ryan, my bass player and MD, is a great help with stuff like that too. I like to have an idea before I bring it to the band.

That's very sweet! Sadly not, I'll probably be back on the road. But many congratulations and wishing you many happy years.

The first festival I ever went to was in 2006, and the main stage bill for Oxegen was, in this order, I believe: Hard-Fi, Magic Numbers, Arctic Monkeys on their first album, Strokes, I think on their third, Kings of Leon on their second, followed by the Who, followed by James Brown. To that day, it was an outrageous line-up. I stayed in the main pit until I got to the barrier sometime around the Who. I was in there for about eight or nine hours standing. Arduous and dizzying, I should have drunk a lot more water and eaten something. It was fucking incredible, to be fair.

Decompressing is more from the adrenaline, winding yourself down to the point where you can sleep. That can take hours. It's such a buzz. When performing the songs, it doesn't feel like an emotionally exhausting thing, those are just the songs and they require a certain amount to be sang. That just does what it does. Afterwards, you take a moment in the dressing room with the band and share a few words about the show, and then you're back laughing, you get back to doing silly things. A little while sitting in the dressing room taking a few deep breaths. The post-show shower is an important ritual for that.

I do. I was introduced recently to roquefort. I used to avoid strong blues, but not any more, I tell you what.

I think Nina Cried Power was the most difficult to write. That song was very nearly abandoned many times over. I always second-guessed that song. No one wants to be seen as being preachy or on a soapbox, so I had a lot of concerns about that song being taken the wrong way. As a result it took longer to write. Exposed, fragile - I have a real love of the song Wasteland, Baby! because I am not a terribly hopeful person a lot of the time, so it was fun to externalise some of my more pessimistic outlooks.

Yes, you're welcome!

1984, I have to say. I was reading that sometime around the Iraq occupation, and it freaked me out, the chapter on the perpetual nature of war and the necessity of perpetual war. Just hit me at the right time. I really loved Winston Smith for how fragile he was.

I would love the opportunity, for any film if the film was right. Who do I think the next James Bond should be... Can I just say, I feel grateful that it's not something I spend too much time thinking about...

In short, it differs based on what your starting point is. Sometimes your starting point is a couplet, or a central lyrical idea. Or it's a musical hook, a guitar or piano piece. And it's just a case of teasing out the work in a way that feels right to the piece. You flesh it out from a fairly embryonic point.

I think if you're not subverting norms, what's the point, really? It's literally the only thing that's of interest, the only thing human brains get a kick out of. The whole point is subverting the system and subverting an expected outcome, where you think the function will lead. I suppose that's where we get pleasure out of jokes, subverting the expectation. While I was home, I was asked a lot about the Irish concept of craic, and it translates roughly to fun, but I think it is more about subverting the expectation of social norms and subverting the expectation of social decency, and respect for oneself as well. I can't blame it all on being Irish but Irish people - if they're not taking the piss out of something, what's the point, really.

I really enjoyed Inside Out, that was quite cool. I very rarely get to see films, but what I like about Pixar is that it introduces child audiences to loss and grief a lot of the time, and the loss of parental figures. They do it in a very interesting way.

It would have to be a guitar.

I would love to, yeah. I was once approached by a TV show that wanted to do a duo performance with a country-folk artist, and I kept asking can I do it with Brandi, and they kept throwing me people where I had no relationship with their music. It was Brandi or nothing. So I would love to. I have wanted to for a long time. I think she's an incredible, very brave artist. It's fantastic to see her getting recognition, the Grammy recognition was well overdue.

I'm just about to finish Zone of Interest by Martin Amis. It's not for the faint-hearted but it's super ambitious, just an amazing piece of work. I have some small books just for carrying around, I think Sickness Unto Death by Kierkegaard in my bag, which I haven't read, I've been trying to read him. No progress yet.

Chocolate. I have an outrageous relationship with Malteasers. Cadbury's chocolate. Chips. Tea, coffee. Caffeine, salt and sugar straight into my veins please.

Where it can be done it is conscious sometimes, yeah. If a three-letter word that isn't dependent on the rhyming scheme and doesn't add or take away as to what that word is. I think Michael Stipe used to do that quite a bit - there's no need for specifics in the same way that some things don't need to be explicit. Either way, the listener finishes the piece. It won't happen in all songs, but in some songs it's not important who the subject is, or what their gender is.

He's drawn criticism, rightly so. I can't speak to his outlook and to his posts. I was quite shocked and quite baffled by much of it. For the moment, no, there's no plans to work with him again.

I would use the word disappointed, to be honest.

I once scrubbed toilets in a golf club. Good people. A good experience of hard work. But I have to say, scrubbing showers would give me a profound respect for people who do that for a living. Showers are far worse than toilets.

I can't say mythology has directly influenced the lyricism, I can say folk music and tales and poetry, maybe. I would say that the poetry of Yates has, and his work was hugely influenced by Irish mythology, so maybe by degrees. His work has found its way into my inner life and work.

I spoke a bit about Quakerism in an interview on a Scandinavian television show called Skavlan about the Quaker ethos that was instilled in me, about trying to find the God in every person, which I think can be a useful exercise regardless of your outlook. I don't think I know Miss Pim, is the truth, I was nary a glint in the 80s. I think my parents weren't in that area at the time. My dad was possibly not even a Quaker at that stage.

Do I wanna pull the rug on those songs?? From the first album, the song Someone New managed to survive from previous generations of demos, and it was the oldest song and the song that by that stage resonated with me least.

I am, I think, the luckiest person I know. And the greatest benefit is not having to worry as much about things that life throws at you and your family with regard to money troubles. That hands down is the greatest thing.

I should give him a shoutout because he's starting a new business - the Butcher Barber in Dublin. Ask for Emmet.

The underwater aesthetic was a big part of the visual concept that my mum, Rainey, would have devised when she was doing the painting. For me, I like it because it kinda resonates with some of the lyrical themes on a number of songs - The End Times, but specifically The Sea Level Rising. And I think there's something very oppressive about the imagery of being trapped underwater. I do love swimming, but the images themselves, holding your breath for that long, sitting down and having no way out - there's something oppressive about that. It was a fun shoot, I have to say.

No, I'm much preferring it this time around, I have to say. The first time around everything is new and exciting, but incredibly stressful because you're learning by doing. This time around, there's more confidence and more songs to choose from, which is great. Out from the guitar - I have a fantastic musician in the band who can take some of the guitar lines. And if I don't need to play them, it's great to just perform them as a singer - I feel I am a singer before I am a guitar player.

I was listening to a good bit of Ali Farka Toure, and for many years I've been enjoying Tinariwen's work. I have zero technique on guitar so what you're probably hearing is turns and hammers influenced by that, and Irish folk. Collaborate - too many to mention.