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I too have had the pleasure to see Ivan play a few times now, and that's why I invited him on to the Radio One show to hear him play these intimate songs to the nation, and find out a bit more about him. Here's some of the radio interview...

Beth: What's your background?

Ivan: I was born in Norwich, moved to Australia, back to Suffolk, then Cornwall before moving to Cardiff to University, studying history and politics at UWIC, and play some music when I get the chance.

Beth: It's important that artists have something to say. Are you going to involve your politics in your songs someday?

Ivan: I've thought about that, but it's not something I feel I can do particularly well. If you're going to do it, you've got to know what you're doing or you'll sound a bit silly or pretentious. Some people do it well, like Frank Turner, he's a favourite act of mine, but until I can do it as good as him, I'll just keep writing songs about what everyone else writes songs about.

Beth: What's inspired your music?

Ivan: I'd have to say what most people say, I'm inspired by the music my parents played as I was growing up. What I heard around the house. A lot of Beatles, a lot of folk, my mum's a massive fan of Cat Stevens, Steeleye Span - all the stuff they'd listen to, and I grew up without a TV in my house. My parents thought I should be out playing in forests and ditches, which is what I did, then one day my dad tried to teach himself slide guitar, but he didn't try very hard, so there was a guitar lying about, so tried to teach myself to play along to songs.

I taught myself to play because I wanted to join a friend's ska punk band, Pelican Skeleton - that was a lot of fun! So I've been writing songs for a while, but it took a bit of confidence for me to start performing solo.

To hear some music from Ivan Moult, have a listen to his myspace page here, and he's keen to play more gigs, so if you can help with a booking, do get in touch with Ivan direct.