Thomston quotes:

I feel like success is really subjective. You could win a school talent show and be like "I was successful", or you could get a Number One in New Zealand and be like "I was successful', or you could win a Grammy and be like "I was successful".

I was born in London. I moved to New Zealand when I was really young; I can't remember London. My parents went and did what was supposed to be a one-year O.E. (overseas experience) that turned into a 9 year O.E. and they had two kids.

I have three brothers. Poor Mum; four boys.

For me, I need people who will respect my vision and will back it and won't go changing things without letting me know. I would love some people who I feel like I could work with on a personal level as well.

I feel like writing music is a great chance to create something that extends beyond yourself.

I love to act, so the only way I could act was through community theatre and they would just do musicals. My musical upbringing was show-tunes and it sucks and I have been trying to get away from it ever since.

The ideal label for me would be this passive being with lots of money, but unfortunately it doesn't really work like that.

In terms of melody, I am really into great 90's melodies. I feel like there was a great focus on melody in the 90's, like 90's pop-hooks and 90's R&B hooks; I just love them.

Acting is fun. I enjoy it, but there is just not many opportunities to do it on a serious level. It is kind of either bad community musicals, or if you are lucky enough to be cast in something serious. I feel like you really have to be going after it, and for me I am a little bit distracted.

As cheesy as it sounds, I feel like I do write a lot, not necessarily for a message to be taken away. I feel like it is a little bit egotistical to be like, "I hope they are a better person after listening to my song."

As long as I can sustain myself and as long as people like what I am doing and are happy to support me to continue, that is success in my eyes.

I am a big nut for kind of weird musicality things. I love key-changes and random tempo things and polyrhythms - music geek.

I feel like a good song is one that ticks all the boxes, but a great song is one that has this kind of special quality that just resonates with people.

I feel like if you compare yourself to other successful musicians you will never be successful, because there will always be someone above you who has done something more or done something first or done something better.

I feel like it is only music where people are like, "You can't do this for other people, you have to do it for yourself." Which I hate.

I feel like so many people get into that place where creating for someone else is selling out and it is so not about that. It is a stupid, kind of pretentious way of thinking.

I feel like they would just be the funnest people. I wish I could have been friends with Michael Jackson, just because he had the most badass house of all time and I could just go out and go on amusement park rides and then he could teach me how to moonwalk.

I just chuck a bunch of words down and whether they find themselves into a song... I have lots of weird notes on my phone. I often come up with a phrase that I really like, I write it down and it stays in my notes folder, and when I'm writing I will scroll through and see if it kind of fits and if I can mould a verse around it.

I love making music. I feel like people often get into that 'you should only make music for yourself' kind of place, where they say things like, "I don't write for other people, I write for myself," and I feel like that misses the mark so much because music, especially pop music, is so much more than yourself.

I mainly get my inspiration for writing from everyday situations and I come up with hypothetical scenarios and I can usually write a lot about that.

I sit at the piano for a couple of hours and tinker away until I get something. I am a nocturnal spirit, like an owl.

I think my first song ever was when my cat died. It was this awful, dreadful black cat who was angry and hated everything. Yet I was so upset when it died.

I would love to be friends with Kanye West, because I know he is not a dreadful person, he is a lovely person and I think he is misunderstood.

I write in a bunch of different ways, but my favourite way is to walk around my neighbourhood at ridiculous hours, like 2am. I feel like the movement helps me clear my thoughts so I can just get all of the words out and type them onto my phone.

I'd gotten to a point where I would write a lyric and then delete it because I was worried about how it sounded. Pretty much, I was a dreadful person and It was just a way of dealing with feeling kind of guilty about that.

If we all knew how to make that jump from good to great then I think every song would be great.

It is one of those things that is universally connectable, people can connect to it from everywhere; music is like that universal language.

My Dad played the trombone and I think my Mom played the piano for about two years. It is very self-driven. They pushed me to do piano lessons, but they were never forceful about anything. They never pushed me to sing or anything, it was something that I did myself.

Something like film, I guess there are so many elements to it, like the dialogue and what makes sense culturally.

Sometimes I just get into the zone of the song, but in the outset I feel like I love to cater to people - but not necessarily at the expense of my artistry or anything like that.

The thing is, is that I hate theatre, but it was how I learnt to sing.

There is a balance in between where you can still make art, but it does not have to be insular.

When I come up with something that I feel like people will connect with that makes me happy because I know that it would be something that would just go beyond me.

You don't make a film and then be like I am only going to play it in my house and no-one is going to see it - that is ridiculous.