Well yeah, you know, songwriters are great, but they can only get you so far, and if you limit yourself to them.

I love Paul Auster. I am a huge fan I have been reading a lot of books about empire I read a bunch of Rudyard Kipling, which is really interesting stuff. I am reading a lot of biography at the moment, especially on John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, really interesting stuff

How does that go down on the Tour Bus? Do you get a hard time from the rest of the crew?

Oh yeah! Totally! But you know I get into it totally. You never know where these ideas are going to come from. I got some serious hell for reading a biography of Noel Webster who is the guy who wrote the first American dictionary but it's (with utter conviction) amazing stuff and it really gets you thinking - maybe it'll pair up with something good and you'll get something good for a song. In other way it is really fun to sit back and learn something about something you know nothing about.Trying to write songs and only getting inspiration from other music, I think it would be pretty hard.

One of the problems perhaps, for a songwriter with such detailed lyrics, is one of translating - how will audiences that don't speak English as a first language pick up on your songs, when there's such a heavy emphasis on the lyrics. For example, there are a number of excellent Italian songwriters, who are huge in Italy but unknown outside, because their lyrics play such an important part. How do you cope with that?

I think it's for me an incredibly rare thing for someone like me, to come here to play to people, and have people listen and I want people to know how exciting it is to me and if my excitement can come across I feel words don’t matter that much and I mean it is also a very universal thing somebody coming and setting up with a guitar or with whatever and just singing and hoping it will go and people respond to that and even without all the lights and crew and paraphenalia - there is something that catches. With lyrics there is a potential obstacle always and people respond to lyrics so much and I use a lot of words that I really love. I love words that are kind of unusual sometimes and they can be difficult, I guess - and maybe not something you can translate on the fly when you're listening to somebody. I think they do matter but at the same time it is really amazing that people would respond anyway. I think that’s so cool.

(And indeed later that evening, Ritter like a man possessed certainly does manage to communicate his excitement across to the Italian audience)

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