"Change has always been put upon me, and I would always comply."

You’ve said you consider yourself to be a world citizen. What does that mean to you?

I’m Arab and Dutch, and I live in Australia, but my parents lived all over the world. I was born in the Netherlands, and my sisters were all born in different parts of the world, so I guess I don’t really feel like I have a country that I call home because I sort of had to make do to just make everywhere my home. I still have a lot of family in the Middle East. So even though one might consider me Australian, because I live here, and I’ve adopted the accent, my heart is still in a lot of other places.

You’ve lived in New Zealand, Canada, the US and Australia. How has your movement across the globe permeated your songwriting?

Everywhere I went I would listen to the radio. It was the one thing t...