Quirky songstress Paloma Faith has admitted that her stint as a wedding singer inspired her to become a professional songwriter.

The star explained that performing covers of popular blues hits at events was fantastic and she always received praise from guests on her own renditions of the tracks, so she decided to take the next step and began working on original material:

"I don't think it was exactly a song that inspired me to start songwriting. I didn't know I was going to be a professional musician so I just started to sing cover songs. There were a collection of '50s blues and rock'n'roll songs that I was singing when I was in a covers band for weddings."

"People used to say to me, 'You sound great singing them but you should write your own'. So I think at first when I started writing I was inspired by those songs and now it's organically changing as I go along. But it was that experience of singing covers that really inspired me."