Hozier has had an amazing career, propelled by his first global hit in 2013 “Take Me to Church," but it takes a heckuva long time for the Wicklow native to create his songs.

“It could take me a year to write a song. It could take a year and a half,” Hozier recently revealed to The Telegraph.

“It’s some sort of process of elimination, sort of trimming off the shoots that ultimately might fail and kill the whole plant.

"When a song is in its early, conceptual, embryonic state, where it has an ability to grow a limb in any direction, I sit over that a little bit, maybe to my detriment, and make sure it’s growing in a way that best represents the core idea, the core feeling I got when it was first conceived.

"So it’s really just making sure that there’s no better way I could have written that song."

Hozier, 33, has a new album coming out on August 18, "Unreal Unearth." It’s just his third in nine years, so he clearly isn’t going to put anything out there unless it’s done to perfection.

The Irish singer-songwriter is currently on a world tour that fans are swiftly responding to – his date at New York City's iconic Madison Square Garden on September 30 is already sold out.

But all his success isn’t giving him a swelled head. Keeping his life as normal as possible is paramount, he says.

“I keep my head down,” he says. “I think fame is quite an unnatural state. It must be a tricky thing if you get your sense of validation through other people’s adulation.

“It would be a shame if I couldn’t just sit in a bar with friends – I’d be sorry to lose that. There’s something wonderful about watching people interact, being a witness to the world. That’s very hard when you walk in a door and feel people are witnessing you.

"So yeah, I keep my head down.”

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